THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


Dr.  Blanche  C.  Brown 


of  (geore  3Etiot 


THE   MILL   ON   THE   FLOSS 
VOL.  I. 

ILLUSTRATED  CABINET  EDITION 


Mr.  Tullruer  and  Mrs.  Moss. 
Original  Etching  by  C.  O.  Murray, 


O  .3  xr- 


Ellustrateo  Cabinet  (JHtJitton 


Volume  I. 


By 

George  Eliot 


Boston 

Dana  Estes  &  Company 
Publishers 


College 
Library 


4i 
•ft  l> 

CONTENTS. 

VOL.  L 


Book  I. 
BOY  AND  GIRL. 

CHAPTF.H 

I.     OUTSIDE  DORLCOTE  MILL 1 

II.    MR.   TULLIVER,    OF    DORLCOTE    MILL,  DE- 
CLARES HIS  RESOLUTION  ABOUT  TOM      .        5 

III.  MR.     RlLEY     GIVES     HIS     ADVICE     CONCERN- 

ING A  SCHOOL  FOR  TOM          14 

IV.  TOM  is  EXPECTED 33 

V.    TOM  COMES  HOME 41 

VI.     THE  AUNTS  AND  UNCLES  ARE  COMING  .     .  55 

VII.     ENTER  THE  AUNTS  AND  UNCLES    ....  71 

VIII.     MR.  TULLIVER  SHOWS  HIS  WEAKER  SIDE  .  103 

IX.     To  GARUM  FIRS 117 

X.    MAGGIE    BEHAVES  WORSE    THAN    SHE    EX- 
PECTED       137 

XL    MAGGIE   TRIES   TO   RUN  AWAY   FROM  HER 

SHADOW 146 

XII.     MR.  AND  MRS.  GLEGG  AT  HOME  ....  162 
XIH.    MR.   TULLIVER  FURTHER  ENTANGLES  THE 

SKEIN  OF  LIFE 180 

Book  II. 
SCHOOL-TIME. 

I.     TOM'S  "FIRST  HALF" 185 

II.     THE  CHRISTMAS  HOLIDAYS 214 

III.     THE  NEW  SCHOOLFELLOW  .     225 


762727 


CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

IV.    "THE  YOUNG  IDEA" 234 

V.    MAGGIE'S  SECOND  VISIT 249 

VI.     A  LOVE-SCENE 256 

VII.    THE  GOLDEN  GATES  ARE  PASSED  .  263 


Book   III. 
THE  DOWNFALL. 

I.    WHAT  HAD  HAPPENED  AT  HOME  ....  273 
II.    MRS.   TULLIVER'S    TERAPHIM,   OR    HOUSE- 
HOLD GODS       282 

III.  THE  FAMILY  COUNCIL 289 

IV.  A  VANISHING  GLEAM 311 

V.    TOM  APPLIES  HIS  KNIFE  TO  THE  OYSTER  .  317 

VI.     TENDING    TO    REFUTE  THE  POPULAR  PRE- 
JUDICE    AGAINST     THE     PRESENT     OF     A 

POCKET-KNIFE 334 

VII.     How  A  HEN  TAKES  TO  STRATAGEM  .     .     .  844 

VIII.    DAYLIGHT  ON  THE  WRECK 361 

IX.    AN  ITEM  ADDED  TO  THE  FAMILY  REGISTER  873 


Hist  of  Illustrations. 

VOL.  I. 

MR.  TCLLIVER  AND  MRS.  Moss Frontispiece 

MAGGIE  AND  THE  GYPSY 151 

TOM  FRIGHTENING  MAGGIE 254 

MRS.  TULLIVER  AND  MR.  WAKEM 352 


THE   MILL   ON  THE   FLOSS. 


BOOK   I. 

BOY    AND     GIRL. 
CHAPTER  I. 

OUTSIDE   DORLCOTE   MILL. 

A  WIDE  plain,  where  the  broadening  Floss  hurries 
on  between  its  green  banks  to  the  sea,  and  the 
loving  tide,  rushing  to  meet  it,  checks  its  passage 
with  an  impetuous  embrace.  On  this  mighty  tide 
the  black  ships  —  laden  with  the  fresh-scented  fir- 
planks,  with  rounded  sacks  of  oil-bearing  seed,  or 
with  the  dark  glitter  of  coal  —  are  borne  along  to 
the  town  of  St.  Ogg's,  which  shows  its  aged,  fluted 
red  roofs  and  the  broad  gables  of  its  wharves  between 
the  low  wooded  hill  and  the  river-brink,  tingeing  the 
water  with  a  soft  purple  hue  under  the  transient 
glance  of  this  February  sun.  Far  away  on  each 
hand  stretch  the  rich  pastures,  and  the  patches  of 
dark  earth,  made  ready  for  the  seed  of  broad-leaved 
green  crops,  or  touched  already  with  the  tint  of 
the  tender-bladed  autumn-sown  corn.  There  is  a 
remnant  still  of  the  last  year's  golden  clusters  of 
bee-hive  ricks  rising  at  intervals  beyond  the  -hedge- 

VOL.    I. —  1 


2  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

rows;  and  everywhere  the  hedgerows  are  studded 
with  trees :  the  distant  ships  seem  to  be  lifting 
their  masts  and  stretching  their  red-brown  sails 
close  among  the  branches  of  the  spreading  ash. 
Just  by  the  red-roofed  town  ths  tributary  Ripple 
flows  with  a  lively  current  into  the  Floss.  How 
lovely  the  little  river  is,  with  its  dark  changing 
wavelets !  It  seems  to  me  like  a  living  companion 
while  I  wander  along  the  bank  and  listen  to  its  low 
placid  voice,  as  to  the  voice  of  one  who  is  deaf  and 
loving.  I  remember  those  large  dipping  willows. 
I  remember  the  stone  bridge. 

And  this  is  Dorlcote  Mill.  I  must  stand  a  min- 
ute or  two  here  on  the  bridge  and  look  at  it,  though 
the  clouds  are  threatening,  and  it  is  far  on.  in  the 
afternoon.  Even  in  this  leafless  time  of  departing 
February  it  is  pleasant  to  look  at,  —  perhaps  the 
chill  damp  season  adds  a  charm  to  the  trimly  kept 
comfortable  dwelling-house,  as  old  as  the  elms  and 
chestnuts  that  shelter  it  from  the  northern  blast. 
The  stream  is  brimful  now,  and  lies  high  in  this  little 
withy  plantation,  and  half  drowns  the  grassy  fringe 
of  the  croft  in  front  of  the  house.  As  I  look  at  the 
full  stream,  the  vivid  grass,  the  delicate  bright-green 
powder  softening  the  outline  of  the  great  trunks 
and  branches  that  gleam  from  under  the  bare  purple 
boughs,  I  am  in  love  with  moistness,  and  envy  the 
white  ducks  that  are  dipping  their  heads  far  into 
the  water  here  among  the  withes,  unmindful  of  the 
awkward  appearance  they  make  in  the  drier  world 
above. 

The  rush  of  the  water  and  the  booming  of  the 
mill  bring  a  dreamy  deafness,  which  seems  to 
heighten  the  peacefulness  of  the  scene.  They  are 
like  u  great  curtain  of  sound,  shutting  one  out 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  3 

from  the  world  beyond.  And  now  there  is  the 
thunder  of  the  huge  covered  wagon  coming  home 
with  sacks  of  grain.  That  honest  wagoner  is 
thinking  of  his  dinner,  getting  sadly  dry  in  the  oven 
at  this  late  hour ;  but  he  will  not  touch  it  till  he 
has  fed  his  horses,  —  the  strong,  submissive,  meek- 
eyed  beasts,  who,  I  fancy,  are  looking  mild  reproach 
at  him  from  between  their  blinkers,  that  he  should 
crack  his  whip  at  them  in  that  awful  manner  as  if 
they  needed  that  hint !  See  how  they  stretch  their 
shoulders  up  the  slope  towards  the  bridge,  with  all 
the  more  energy  because  they  are  so  near  home. 
Look  at  their  grand  shaggy  feet  that  seem  to  grarp 
the  firm  earth,  at  the  patient  strength  of  their 
necks  bowed  under  the  heavy  collar,  at  the  mighty 
muscles  of  their  struggling  haunches !  I  should 
like  well  to  hear  them  neigh  over  their  hardly  earned 
feed  of  corn,  and  see  them,  with  their  moist  necks 
freed  from  the  harness,  dipping  their  eager  nostrils 
into  the  muddy  pond.  Now  they  are  on  the  bridge, 
and  down  they  go  again  at  a  swifter  pace,  and  the 
arch  of  the  covered  wagon  disappears  at  the  turning 
behind  the  trees. 

Now  I  can  turn  my  eyes  towards  the  mill  again, 
and  watch  the  unresting  wheel  sending  out  its 
diamond  jets  of  water.  That  little  girl  is  watching 
it  too :  she  has  been  standing  on  just  the  same  spot 
at  the  edge  of  the  water  ever  since  I  paused  on  the 
bridge.  And  that  queer  white  cur  with  the  brown 
ear  seems  to  be  leaping  and  barking  in  ineffectual 
remonstrance  with  the  wheel ;  perhaps  he  is  jeal- 
ous, because  his  playfellow  in  the  beaver  bonnet  is 
so  rapt  in  its  movement.  It  is  time  the  little  play- 
fellow went  in,  I  think ;  and  there  is  a  very  bright 
fire  to  tempt  her:  the  red  light  shines  out  under 


4  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  deepening  gray  of  the  sky.  It  is  time,  too,  for 
me  to  leave  off  resting  my  arms  on  the  cold  stuiie 
of  this  bridge.  .  .  . 

Ah,  my  arms  are  really  benumbed.  I  have  been 
pressing  my  elbows  on  the  arms  of  my  chair,  and 
dreaming  that  I  was  standing  on  the  bridge  in  front 
of  Dorlcote  Mill,  as  it  looked  one  February  after- 
noon many  years  ago.  Before  I  dozed  off,  I  was 
going  to  tell  you  what  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tulliver  were 
talking  about,  as  they  sat  by  the  bright  fire  in  the 
left-hand  parlour,  on  that  very  afternoon  I  have  been 
dreaming  of. 


CHAPTER  II. 

MR.  TULLIVER,  OF  DORLCOTE  MILL,  DECLARES  HIS 
RESOLUTION  ABOUT  TOM. 

"  WHAT  I  want,  you  know,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  — 
"  what  I  want  is  to  give  Tom  a  good  eddication ; 
an  eddication  as  '11  be  a  bread  to  him.  That  was 
what  I  was  thinking  of  when  I  gave  notice  for  him 
to  leave  the  academy  at  Lady  Day.  I  mean  to  put 
him  to  a  downright  good  school  at  Midsummer. 
The  two  years  at  th'  academy  'ud  ha'  done  well  enough, 
if  I  'd  meant  to  make  a  miller  and  farmer  of  him, 
for  he  's  had  a  fine  sight  more  schoolin'  nor  /  ever 
got :  all  the  learnin'  my  father  ever  paid  for  was  a 
bit  o'  birch  at  one  end  and  the  alphabet  at  th'  other. 
But  I  should  like  Tom  to  be  a  bit  of  a  scholard, 
so  as  he  might  be  up  to  the  tricks  o'  these  fellows 
as  talk  fine  and  write  with  a  nourish.  It  'ud  be  a 
help  to  me  wi'  these  lawsuits  and  arbitrations  and 
things.  I  would  n't  make  a  downright  lawyer  o'  the 
lad,  —  I  should  be  sorry  for  him  to  be  a  raskill,  — 
but  a  sort  o'  engineer,  or  a  surveyor,  or  an  auctioneer 
and  vallyer,  like  Riley,  or  one  o'  them  smartish 
businesses  as  are  all  profits  and  no  outlay,  only  for 
a  big  watch-chain  and  a  high  stool.  They  're  pretty 
nigh  all  one,  and  they  're  not  far  off  being  even  wi' 
the  law,  /  believe ;  for  Riley  looks  Lawyer  Wakem 
i'  the  face  as  hard  as  one  cat  looks  another.  He  's 
none  frightened  at  him." 


6  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Mr.  Tulliver  was  speaking  to  his  wife,  a  blond 
comely  woman  in  a  fan-shaped  cap  (I  am  afraid  to 
think  how  long  it  is  since  fan-shaped  caps  were 
worn,  —  they  must  be  so  near  coming  in  again.  At 
that  time,  when  Mrs.  Tulliver  was  nearly  forty, 
they  were  new  at  St.  Ogg's,  and  considered  sweet 
things). 

"Well,  Mr.  Tulliver,  you  know  best:  I've  no 
objections.  But  had  n't  I  better  kill  a  couple  o' 
fowl  and  have  th'  aunts  and  uncles  to  dinner  next 
week,  so  as  you  may  hear  what  sister  Glegg  and 
sister  Pullet  have  got  to  say  about  it  ?  There  's  a 
couple  o'  fowl  ivants  killing ' " 

"  You  may  kill  every  fowl  i'  the  yard,  if  you  like, 
Bessy ;  but  I  shall  ask  neither  aunt  nor  uncle  what 
I  'm  to  do  wi'  my  own  lad,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
defiantly. 

"  Dear  heart ! "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  shocked  at 
this  sanguinary  rhetoric,  "  how  can  you  talk  so, 
Mr.  Tulliver  ?  But  it 's  your  way  to  speak  disre- 
spactful  o'  my  family  ;  and  sister  Glegg  throws  all 
the  blame  upo'  me,  though  I  'm  sure  I  'm  as  inno- 
cent as  the  babe  unborn.  For  nobody  's  ever  heard 
me  say  as  it  was  n't  lucky  for  my  children  to  have 
aunts  and  uncles  as  can  live  independent.  How- 
iver,  if  Tom  's  to  go  to  a  new  school,  I  should  like 
him  to  go  where  I  can  wash  him  and  mend  him  ; 
else  he  might  as  well  have  calico  as  linen,  for  they  'd 
be  one  as  yallow  as  th'  other  before  they  'd  been 
washed  half-a-dozen  times.  And  then,  when  the 
box  is  goin'  backards  and  forrards,  I  could  send  the 
lad  a  cake,  or  a  pork-pie,  or  an  apple ;  for  he  can  do 
with  an  extry  bit,  bless  him,  whether  they  stint 
him  at  the  meals  or  no.  My  children  can  eat  as 
much  victuals  as  most,  thank  God." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  7 

"  Well,  well,  we  won't  send  him  out  o'  reach  o' 
the  carrier's  cart,  if  other  things  fit  in,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver.  "  But  you  must  n't  put  a  spoke  i'  the 
wheel  about  the  washin',  if  we  can't  get  a  school 
near  enough.  That 's  the  fault  I  have  to  find  wi' 
you,  Bessy  ;  if  you  see  a  stick  i'  the  road,  you  're 
allays  thinkin'  you  can't  step  over  it.  You  'd  want 
me ,  not  to  hire  a  good  wagoner,  'cause  he  'd  got  a 
mole  on  his  face." 

"  Dear  heart ! "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  in  mild  sur- 
prise, "  when  did  I  iver  make  objections  to  a  man 
because  he  'd  got  a  mole  on  his  face  ?  I  'm  sure  I  'm 
rather  fond  o'  the  moles ;  for  my  brother,  as  is  dead 
an'  gone,  had  a  mole  on  his  brow.  But  I  can't 
remember  your  iver  offering  to  hire  a  wagoner  with 
a  mole,  Mr.  Tulliver.  There  was  John  Gibbs  had  n't 
a  mole  on  his  face  no  more  nor  you  have,  an'  I  was 
all  for  having  you  hire  him  ;  an'  so  you  did  hire 
him,  an'  if  he  had  n't  died  o'  th'  inflammation,  as  we 
paid  Dr.  Turnbull  for  attending  him,  he  'd  very  like 
ha'  been  driving  the  wagon  now.  He  might  have  a 
mole  somewhere  out  o'  sight,  but  how  was  I  to 
know  that,  Mr.  Tulliver  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  Bessy ;  I  did  n't  mean  justly  the  mole ; 
I  meant  it  to  stand  for  summat  else  ;  but  niver 
mind,  —  it 's  puzzling  work,  talking  is.  What  I  'm 
thinking  on,  is  how  to  find  the  right  sort  o'  school 
to  send  Tom  to,  for  I  might  be  ta'en  in  again,  as 
I  've  been  wi'  th'  academy.  I  '11  have  nothing  to  do 
wi'  a  'cade my  again :  whativer  school  I  send  Tom 
to,  it  sha'n't  be  a  'cademy  ;  it  shall  be  a  place  where 
the  lads  spend  their  time  i'  summat  else  besides 
blacking  the  family's  shoes,  and  getting  up  the 
potatoes.  It's  an  uncommon  puzzling  thing  to  know 
what  school  to  pick." 


8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Mr.  Tulliver  paused  a  minute  or  two,  and  dived 
with  both  hands  into  his  breeches-pockets  as  if  he 
hoped  to  find  some  suggestion  there.  Apparently 
he  was  not  disappointed,  for  he  presently  said,  "  I 
know  what  I  '11  do,  —  I  '11  talk  it  over  wi'  Eiley : 
he 's  coming  to-morrow,  t'  arbitrate  about  the 
dam." 

"  Well,  Mr.  Tulliver,  I  've  put  the  sheets  out  for 
the  best  bed,  and  Kezia  's  got  'em  hanging  at  the 
fire.  They  are  n't  the  best  sheets,  but  they  're  good 
enough  for  anybody  to  sleep  in,  be  he  who  he  will ; 
for  as  for  them  best  Holland  sheets,  I  should  repent 
buying  'em,  only  they  '11  do  to  lay  us  out  in.  An' 
if  you  was  to  die  to-morrow,  Mr.  Tulliver,  they  're 
mangled  beautiful,  an'  all  ready,  an'  smell  o'  laven- 
der as  it  'ud  be  a  pleasure  to  lay  'em  out ;  an'  they 
lie  at  the  left-hand  corner  o'  the  big  oak  linen-chest 
at  the  back :  not  as  I  should  trust  anybody  to  look 
'em  out  but  myself." 

As  Mrs.  Tulliver  uttered  the  last  sentence,  she 
drew  a  bright  bunch  of  keys  from  her  pocket,  and 
singled  out  one,  rubbing  her  thumb  and  finger  up 
and  down  it  with  a  placid  smile  while  she  looked  at 
the  clear  fire.  If  Mr.  Tulliver  had  been  a  suscep- 
tible man  in  his  conjugal  relation,  he  might  have 
supposed  that  she  drew  out  the  key  to  aid  her 
imagination  in  anticipating  the  moment  when  he 
would  be  in  a  state  to  justify  the  production  of  the 
best  Holland  sheets.  Happily  he  was  not  so;  he 
was  only  susceptible  in  respect  of  his  right  to  water- 
power  ;  moreover,  he  had  the  marital  habit  of  not 
listening  very  closely,  and  since  his  mention  of  Mr. 
Riley,  had  been  apparently  occupied  in  a  tactile 
examination  of  his  woollen  stockings. 

"  I  think  I  've  hit  it,  Bessy,"  was  his  first  remark 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  9 

after  a  short  silence.  "  Riley  's  as  likely  a  man  as 
any  to  know  o'  some  school ;  he 's  had  schooling 
himself,  an'  goes  about  to  all  sorts  o'  places,  —  arbi- 
tratin'  and  vallyin'  and  that.  And  we  shall  have 
time  to  talk  it  over  to-morrow  night  when  the  busi- 
ness is  done.  I  want  Tom  to  be  such  a  sort  o'  man 
as  Riley,  you  know,  —  as  can  talk  pretty  nigh  as 
well  as  if  it  was  all  wrote  out  for  him,  and  kncws  a 
good  lot  o'  words  as  don't  mean  much,  so  as  you 
can't  lay  hold  of  'em  i'  law ;  and  a  good  solid 
knowledge  o'  business  too." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  so  far  as  talking 
proper,  and  knowing  everything,  and  walking  with  a 
bend  in  his  back,  and  setting  his  hair  up,  I  should  n't 
mind  the  lad  being  brought  up  to  that.  But  them 
fine-talking  men  from  the  big  towns  mostly  wear 
the  false  shirt-fronts ;  they  wear  a  frill  till  it 's  all 
a  mess,  and  then  hide  it  with  a  bib ;  I  know  Riley 
does.  And  then,  if  Tom  's  to  go  and  live  at  Mud- 
port,  like  Riley,  he  '11  have  a  house  with  a  kitchen 
hardly  big  enough  to  turn  in,  an'  niver  get  a  fresh 
egg  for  his  breakfast,  an'  sleep  up  three  pair  o' 
stairs  —  or  four,  for  what  I  know  —  and  be  burnt 
to  death  before  he  can  get  down." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  "  I  've  no  thoughts  of 
his  going  to  Mudport :  I  mean  him  to  set  up  his 
office  at  St.  Ogg's,  close  by  us,  an'  live  at  home,, 
But,"  continued  Mr.  Tulliver,  after  a  pause,  "  what 
I  'in  a  bit  afraid  on  is,  as  Tom  has  n't  got  the 
right  sort  o'  brains  for  a  smart  fellow.  I  doubt 
he 's  a  bit  slowish.  He  takes  after  your  family, 
Bessy." 

"  Yes,  that  he  does,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,,  accepting 
the  last  proposition  entirely  on  its  own  merits; 
"  he 's  wonderful  for  liking  a  deal  o'  salt  in  his 


io  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

broth.  That  was  my  brother's  way,  and  my  father's 
befora  him." 

"  It  seems  a  bit  of  a  pity,  though,"  said  Mr.  Tul- 
liver,  "  as  the  lad  should  take  after  the  mother's  side 
istead  o'  the  little  wench.  That 's  the  worst  on  't 
wi'  the  crossing  o'  breeds :  you  can  never  justly  cal- 
kilate  what  '11  come  on  't.  The  little  un  takes  after 
my  side,  now :  she  's  twice  as  'cute  as  Tom.  Too 
'cute  for  a  woman,  I  'in  afraid,"  continued  Mr.  Tul- 
liver,  turning  his  heal  dubiously  first  on  one  side 
and  then  on  the  other.  "  It 's  no  mischief  much 
whils  she  's  a  little  un,  but  an  over-'cute  woman 's 
no  batter  nor  a  long-tailed  sheep,  —  she  '11  fetch 
iiuiie  the  bigger  prica  for  that.'' 

"  Yes,  it  is  a  mischief  while  she  's  a  little  un,  Mr. 
Tulliver,  for  it  all  runs  to  naughtiness.  How  to 
kejp  her  in  a  clean  pinafore  two  hours  together 
passes  my  cunning.  An'  now  you  put  me  i'  mind," 
continued  Mrs.  Tulliver,  rising  and  going  to  the 
window,  "  I  don't  know  where  she  is  now,  an'  it 's 
pretty  nigh  tea-time.  Ah,  I  thought  so,  —  wan- 
derin'  up  an'  down  by  the  water,  like  a  wild  thing : 
she'll  tumble  in  some  day." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  rapped  the  window  sharply,  beck- 
oned, and  shook  her  head,  —  a  process  which  she 
repeated  more  than  once  before  she  returned  to  her 
chair. 

"  You  talk  o'  'cuteness,  Mr.  Tulliver,"  she  observed 
as  she  sat  down,  "but  I  'm  sure  the  child's  half  an 
idiot  i'  some  things ;  for  if  I  send  her  upstairs  to 
fetch  anything,  she  forgets  what  she 's  gone  for,  an' 
perhaps  'ull  sit  down  on  the  floor  i'  the  sunshine  an' 
plait  her  hair  an'  sing  to  herself  like  a  Bedlam 
creatur',  all  the  while  I  'm  waiting  for  her  down- 
stairs. That  niver  run  i'  my  family,  thank  God,  no 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  n 

more  nor  a  brown  skin  as  makes  her  look  like  a 
mulatter.  I  don't  like  to  fly  i'  the  face  o'  Provi- 
dence, but  it  seems  hard  as  I  should  have  but  one 
gell,  an'  her  so  comical." 

"Pooh,  nonsense!"  said  Mr.  Tulliver ;  "she's  a 
straight  black-eyed  wench  as  anybody  need  wish  to 
see.  I  don't  know  i'  what  she 's  behind  other  folks's 
children ;  and  she  can  read  almost  as  well  as  the 
parson." 

"  But  her  hair  won't  curl  all  I  can  do  with  it,  and 
she  's  so  franzy  about  having  it  put  i'  paper,  and 
I  Ve  such  work  as  never  was  to  make  her  stand  and 
have  it  pinched  with  th'  irons." 

"  Cut  it  off,  —  cut  it  off  short,"  said  the  father, 
rashly. 

"  How  can  you  talk  so,  Mr.  Tulliver  ?  She 's  too 
big  a  gell,  gone  nine,  and  tall  of  her  age,  to  have  he.r 
hair  cut  short ;  an'  there  's  her  cousin  Lucy 's  got  a 
row  o'  curls  round  her  head,  an'  not  a  hair  out  o' 
place.  It  seems  hard  as  my  sister  Deane  should 
have  that  pretty  child ;  I  'm  sure  Lucy  takes  more 
after  me  nor  my  own  child  does.  Maggie,  Maggie," 
continued  the  njother,  in  a  tone  of  half-coaxing 
fretfulness,  as  this  small  mistake  of  nature  entered 
the  room,  "  where  's  the  use  o'  my  telling  you  to 
keep  away  from  the  water  ?  You  '11  tumble  in  and 
be  drownded  some  day,  an'  then  you  '11  be  sorry  you 
did  n't  do  as  mother  told  you." 

Maggie's  hair,  as  she  threw  off  her  bonnet,  pain- 
fully confirmed  her  mother's  accusation  :  Mrs.  Tul- 
liver, desiring  her  daughter  to  have  a  curled  crop, 
"  like  other  folks's  children,"  had  had  it  cut  too  short 
in  front  to  be  pushed  behind  the  ears  ;  and  as  it  was 
usually  straight  an  hour  after  it  had  been  taken  out 
of  paper,  Maggie  was  incessantly  tossing  her  head 


12  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

to  keep  the  dark  heavy  locks  out  of  her  gleaming 
Llack  eyes,  —  an  action  which  gave  her  very  much 
the  air  of  a  small  Shetland  pony. 

"  Oh  dear,  oh  dear,  Maggie,  what  are  you  thinkin' 
of,  to  throw  your  bonnet  down  there  ?  Take  it 
upstairs,  there 's  a  good  gell,  an'  let  your  hair  be 
brushed,  an'  put  your  other  pinafore  on,  an'  change 
your  shoes  —  do,  for  shame ;  an'  come  an'  go  on 
with  your  patchwork,  like  a  little  lady." 

"  Oh,  mother,"  said  Maggie,  in  a  vehemently  cross 
tone,  "  I  don't  want  to  do  my  patchwork." 

"  What !  not  your  pretty  patchwork,  to  make  a 
counterpane  for  your  aunt  Glegg?" 

"  It 's  foolish  work,"  said  Maggie,  with  a  toss  of 
her  mane,  — "  tearing  things  to  pieces  to  sew  'em 
together  again.  And  I  don't  want  to  do  anything 
for  my  aunt  Glegg,  —  I  don't  like  her." 

Exit  Maggie,  dragging  her  bonnet  by  the  string, 
whila  Mr.  Tulliver  laughs  audibly. 

"  I  wonder  at  you,  as  you  '11  laugh  at  her,  Mr. 
Tulliver,"  said  the  mother,  with  feeble  fretful- 
ness  in  her  tone.  "  You  encourage  her  i'  naughti- 
ness. An'  her  aunts  will  have  it  as  it 's  me  spoils 
her." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  what  is  called  a  good-tempered 
person,  —  never  cried,  when  she  was  a  baby,  on  any 
slighter  ground  than  hunger  and  pins;  and  from 
the  cradle  upwards  had  been  healthy,  fair,  plump, 
and  dull-witted;  in  short,  the  flower  of  her  family 
for  beauty  and  amiability.  But  milk  and  mildness 
are  not  the  best  things  for  keeping;  and  when  they 
turn  only  a  little  sour,  they  may  disagree  with 
young  stomachs  seriously.  I  have  often  wondered 
whether  those  early  Madonnas  of  Raphael,  with  the 
blond  faces  and  somewhat  stupid  expression,  kept 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  13 

their  placidity  undisturbed  when  their  strong-limbed, 
strong-willed  boys  got  a  little  too  old  to  do  without 
clothing.  I  think  they  must  have  been  given  to 
feeble  remonstrance,  getting  more  and  more  peevish 
as  it  became  more  and  more  ineffectual. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MR.  RILEY  GIVES  HIS   ADVICE  CONCERNING  A  SCHOOL 
FOR    TOM. 

THE  gentleman  in  the  ample  white  cravat  and  shirt- 
frill,  taking  his  brandy-and-water  so  pleasantly  with, 
his  good  friend  Tulliver,  is  Mr.  Riley,  a  gentleman 
with  a  waxen  complexion  and  fat  hands,  rather 
highly  educated  for  an  auctioneer  and  appraiser, 
but  large-hearted  enough  to  show  a  great  deal  of 
bonhomie  towards  simple  country  acquaintances  of 
hospitable  habits.  Mr.  Riley  spoke  of  such  ac- 
quaintances kindly  as  "  people  of  the  old  school." 

The  conversation  had  come  to  a  pause.  Mr. 
Tulliver,  not  without  a  particular  reason,  had  ab- 
stained from  a  seventh  recital  of  the  cool  retort  by 
which  Riley  had  shown  himself  too  many  for  Dix, 
and  how  Wakem  had  had  his  comb  cut  for  once  in 
his  life,  now  the  business  of  the  dam  had  been 
settled  by  arbitration,  and  how  there  never  would 
have  been  any  dispute  at  all  about  the  height  of 
water  if  everybody  was  what  they  should  be,  and 
Old  Harry  had  n't  made  the  lawyers.  Mr.  Tulliver 
was,  on  the  whole,  a  man  of  safe  traditional  opinions; 
but  on  one  or  two  points  he  had  trusted  to  his  un- 
assisted intellect,  and  had  arrived  at  several  ques- 
tionable conclusions ;  among  the  rest,  that  rats, 
weevils,  and  lawyers  were  created  by  Old  Harry. 
Unhappily  he  had  no  one  to  tell  him  that  this  was 
rampant  Manichidsrn,  else  he  might  have  seen  hia 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  15 

error.  But  to-day  it  was  clear  that  the  good  prin- 
ciple was  triumphant:  this  affair  of  the  water- 
power  had  been  a  tangled  business  somehow,  for 
all  it  seemed  —  look  at  it  one  way  —  as  plain  as 
water's  water ;  but,  big  a  puzzle  as  it  was,  it  had  n't 
got  the  better  of  Riley.  Mr.  Tul liver  took  his 
brandy-and-water  a  little  stronger  than  usual,  and, 
for  a  man  who  might  be  supposed  to  have  a  few 
hundreds  lying  idle  at  his  banker's,  was  rather 
incautiously  open  in  expressing  his  high  estimate 
of  his  friend's  business  talents. 

But  the  dam  was  a  subject  of  conversation  that 
would  keep ;  it  could  always  be  taken  up  again  at 
the  same  point,  and  exactly  in  the  same  condition ; 
and  there  was  another  subject,  as  you  know,  on 
which  Mr.  Tulliver  was  in  pressing  want  of  Mr. 
Riley 's  advice.  This  was  his  particular  reason  for 
remaining  silent  for  a  short  space  after  his  last 
draught,  and  rubbing  his  knees  in  a  meditative 
manner.  He  was  not  a  man  to  make  an  abrupt 
transition.  This  was  a  puzzling  world,  as  he  often 
said,  and  if  you  drive  your  wagon  in  a  hurry,  you 
may  light  on  an  awkward  corner.  Mr.  Riley, 
meanwhile,  was  not  impatient.  Why  should  he  be  ? 
Even  Hotspur,  one  would  think,  must  have  been 
patient  in  his  slippers  on  a  warm  hearth,  taking 
copious  snuff,  and  sipping  gratuitous  brandy-and- 
water. 

"  There 's  a  thing  I  've  got  i'  my  head,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver  at  last,  in  rather  a  lower  tone  than  usual, 
as  he  turned  his  head  and  looked  steadfastly  at  his 
companion. 

"  Ah  ! "  said  Mr.  Riley,  in  a  tone  of  mild  interest. 
He  was  a  man  with  heavy  waxen  eyelids  and  high- 
arched  eyebrows,  looking  exactly  the  same  undei 


16  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

all  circumstances.  This  immovability  of  face,  and 
the  habit  of  taking  a  pinch  of  snuff  before  he 
gave  an  answer,  made  him  trebly  oracular  to  Mr. 
Tulliver. 

"  It 's  a  very  particular  thing,"  he  went  on  ;  "  it 's 
about  my  boy  Tom." 

At  the  sound  of  this  name,  Maggie,  who  was 
seated  on  a  low  stool  close  by  the  fire,  with  a  large 
book  open  on  her  lap,  shook  her  heavy  hair  back 
and  looked  up  eagerly.  There  were  few  sounds  that 
roused  Maggie  when  she  was  dreaming  over  her 
book,  but  Tom's  name  served  as  well  as  the  shrillest 
whistle :  in.  an  instant  she  was  on  the  watch,  with 
gleaming  eyes,  like  a  Skye  terrier  suspecting  mis- 
chief, or  at  all  events  determined  to  fly  at  any  one 
who  threatened  it  towards  Tom. 

"  You  see,  I  want  to  put  him  to  a  new  school  at 
Midsummer,"  said  Mr  Tulliver  ;  "  he  's  comin'  away 
from  the  'cademy  at  Lady  Day,  an'  I  shall  let  him 
run  loose  for  a  quarter  ;  but  after  that  I  want  to 
send  him  to  a  downright  good  school,  where  they  '11 
make  a  scholard  of  him." 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Riley,  "  there  's  no  greater  ad- 
vantage you  can  give  him  than  a  good  education. 
Not,"  he  added,  with  polite  significance,  —  "  not  that 
a  man  can't  be  an  excellent  miller  and  farmer,  and 
a  shrewd  sensible  fellow  into  the  bargain,  without 
much  help  from  the  schoolmaster." 

"  I  believe  you,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  winking,  and 
turning  his  head  on  one  side,  "  but  that 's  where  it 
is.  .  I  don't  mean  Tom  to  be  a  miller  and  farmer, 
I  see  no  fun  i'  that :  why,  if  I  made  him  a  miller 
an'  farmer,  he  'd  be  expectin*  to  take  to  the  mill  an' 
the  land,  an'  a-hinting  at  me  as  it  was  time  for  me 
to  lay  by  an'  think  o'  my  latter  end.  Nay,  nay, 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  17 

I've  seen  enough  o'  that  wi'  sons.  I  '11  never  pull 
my  coat  off  before  I  go  to  bed.  I  shall  give  Tom  an 
eddication  an'  put  him  to  a  business,  as  he  may 
make  a  nest  for  himself,  an'  not  want  to  push  me 
out  o'  mine.  Pretty  well  if  he  gets  it  when  T  'm 
dead  an'  gone.  I  sha'n't  be  put  off  wi'  spoon-meat 
afore  1  've  lost  my  teeth. " 

This  was  evidently  a  point  on  which  Mr.  Tulliver 
felt  strongly  ;  and  the  impetus  which  had  given 
unusual  rapidity  and  emphasis  to  his  speech  showed 
itself  still  unexhausted  for  some  minutes  afterwards 
in  a  defiant  motion  of  the  head  from  side  to  side, 
and  an  occasional  "Nay,  nay,"  like  a  subsiding 
growl. 

These  angry  symptoms  were  keenly  observed  by 
Maggie,  and  cut  her  to  the  quick.  Tom,  it  appeared, 
was  supposed  capable  of  turning  his  father  out  of 
doors,  and  of  making  the  future  in  some  way  tragic 
by  his  wickedness.  This  was  not  to  be  borne  ;  and 
Maggie  jumped  up  from  her  stool,  forgetting  all 
about  her  heavy  book,  which  fell  with  a  bang  with- 
in the  fender  ;  and  going  up  between  her  father's 
knees,  odid,  in  a  half-crying,  half-indignant  voice,  — 

"  Father,  Tom  would  n't  be  naughty  to  you  ever  ; 
I  know  he  would  n't." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  out  of  the  room  superintending 
a  choice  supper-dish,  and  Mr.  Tulliver's  heart  was 
touched ;  so  Maggie  was  not  scolded  about  the 
book.  Mr.  Riley  quietly  picked  it  up  and  looked  at 
it,  while  the  father  laughed  with  a  certain  tender- 
ness in  his  hard-lined  face,  and  patted  his  little  girl 
on  the  back,  and  then  held  her  hands  and  kept  her 
between  his  knees. 

"What!  they  mustn't  say  any  harm  o'  Tom, 
eh  ? "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  looking  at  Maggie  with  a 

VOL.    I.  —  2 


i8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

twinkling  eye.  Then,  in  a  lower  voice,  turning  to 
Mr.  Kiley,  as  though  Maggie  couldn't  hear:  "She 
undarstands  what  one  's  talking  about  so  as  never 
was.  And  you  should  hear  her  read,  —  straight  off, 
as  if  she  knowed  it  all  beforehand.  And  allays  at 
her  book  !  But  it 's  bad,  —  it 's  bad,"  Mr.  Tulliver 
added  sadly,  checking  this  blamable  exultation  ; 
"  a  woman 's  no  business  wi'  being  so  clever ;  it  '11 
turn  to  trouble,  I  doubt.  But,  bless  you  !  "  —  here 
the  exultation  was  clearly  recovering  the  mastery, 
—  "  she  '11  read  the  books  and  understand  'em  better 
nor  half  the  folks  as  are  growed  up." 

Maggie's  cheeks  began  to  flush  with  triumphant 
excitement :  she  thought  Mr  liiley  would  have  a 
respect  for  her  now  ;  it  had  been  evident  that  he 
thought  nothing  of  her  before. 

Mr.  Riley  was  turning  over  the  leaves  of  the 
book,  and  she  could  make  nothing  of  his  face,  with 
its  high-arched  eyebrows ;  but  he  presently  looked 
at  her  and  said,  — 

"  Come,  come  and  tell  me  something  about  this 
book ;  here  are  some  pictures,  —  I  want  to  know 
what  they  mean." 

Maggie  with  deepening  colour  went  without  hesi- 
tation to  Mr.  Riley's  elbow,  and  looked  over  the 
book,  eagerly  seizing  one  corner,  and  tossing  back 
her  inane,  while  she  said,  — 

"  Oh,  I  '11  tell  you  what  that  means.  It 's  a 
dreadful  picture,  is  n't  it?  But  I  can't  help  looking 
at  it.  That  old  woman  in  the  water  's  a  witch, — 
they  've  put  her  in  to  find  out  whether  she 's  a 
witch  or  no,  and  if  she  swims  she 's  a  witch,  and  if 
she 's  drowned  —  and  killed,  you  know  —  she  's 
innocent,  and  not  a  witch,  but  only  a  poor  silly  old  * 
woman.  But  what  good  would  it  do  her  then,  you 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  19 

know,  when  she  was  drowned  ?  Only,  I  suppose, 
she  'd  go  to  heaven,  and  God  would  make  it  up  to 
her.  And  this  dreadful  blacksmith  with  his  arms 
akimbo,  laughing  —  oh,  is  n't  he  ugly  ?  —  I  '11  tell 
you  what  he  is.  He 's  the  devil  really "  (here 
Maggie's  voice  became  louder  and  more  emphatic), 
''  and  not  a  right  blacksmith ;  for  the  devil  takes 
the  shape  of  wicked  men,  and  walks  about  and  sets 
people  doing  wicked  things,  and  he 's  oftener  in  the 
shape  of  a  bad  man  than  any  other,  because,  you 
know,  if  people  saw  he  was  the  devil,  and  he  roared 
at  'em,  they  'd  run  away,  and  he  could  n't  make  'em 
do  what  he  pleased." 

Mr.  Tulliver  had  listened  to  this  exposition  of 
Maggie's  with  petrifying  wonder. 

"  Why,  what  book  is  it  the  wench  has  got  hold 
on  ?  "  he  burst  out  at  last. 

" '  The  History  of  the  Devil/  by  Daniel  Defoe ; 
not  quite  the  right  book  for  a  little  girl,"  said  Mr. 
Riley,  "  How  came  it  among  your  books,  Tulli- 
ver ? " 

Maggie  looked  huit  and  discouraged,  while  her 
father  said,  — 

"  Why,  it 's  one  o'  the  books  I  bought  at  Par- 
tridge's sale.  They  was  all  bound  alike,  —  it 's  a 
good  binding,  you  see,  —  and  I  thought  they  'd  be 
all  good  books.  There's  Jeremy  Taylor's  'Holy 
Living  and  Dying '  among  'em ;  I  read  in  it  often  of 
a  Sunday  "  (Mr.  Tulliver  felt  somehow  a  familiarity 
with  that  great  writer  because  his  name  was 
Jeremy) ;  "  and  there  's  a  lot  more  of  'em,  sermons 
mostly,  I  think ;  but  they  've  all  got  the  same 
covers,  and  I  thought  they  were  all  o'  one  sample, 
as  you  may  say.  But  it  seems  one  mustn't  judge 
by  th'  outside.  This  is  a  puzzlin'  world." 


20  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Kiley,  in  an  admonitory  patron- 
izing  tone,  as  he  patted  Maggie  on  the  head,  "  I  advise 
you  to  put  by  the  '  History  of  the  Devil,'  and  read 
some  prettier  book.  Have  you  no  prettier  books  ? " 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Maggie,  reviving  a  little  in  the 
desire  to  vindicate  the  variety  of  her  reading,  "  1 
know  the  reading  in  this  book  isn't  pretty  — but  I 
like  the  pictures,  and  I  make  stories  to  the  pictures 
out  of  my  own  head,  you  know.  But  I  've  got 
'  ^Esop's  Fables,'  and  a  book  about  Kangaroos  and 
things,  and  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress '  —  " 

"  Ah,  a  beautiful  book,"  said  Mr.  Eiley ;  "  you 
can't  read  a  better." 

"  Well,  but  there  's  a  great  deal  about  the  devil 
in  that,"  said  Maggie,  triumphantly,  "  and  I  '11  show 
you  the  picture  of  him  in  his  true  shape,  as  he 
fought  with  Christian." 

Maggie  ran  in  an  instant  to  the  corner  of  the 
room,  jumped  on  a  chair,  and  reached  down  from 
the  small  bookcase  a  shabby  old  copy  of  Bunyan, 
which  opened  at  once,  without  the  least  trouble  of 
search,  at  the  picture  she  wanted. 

"Here  he  is,"  she  said,  running  back  to  Mr.  Riley, 
"  and  Tom  coloured  him  for  me  with  his  paints  when 
he  was  at  home  last  holidays,  —  the  body  all  black, 
you  know,  and  the  eyes  red,  like  fire,  because  he  's 
all  fire  inside,  and  it  shines  out  at  his  eyes." 

"  Go,  go ! "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  peremptorily,  begin- 
ning to  feel  rather  uncomfortable  at  these  free 
remarks  on  the  personal  appearance  of  a  being 
powerful  enough  to  create  lawyers ;  "  shut  up  the 
book,  and  let 's  hear  no  more  o'  such  talk.  It  is 
as  I  thought,  —  the  child  'ud  learn  more  mischief 
nor  good  wi'  the  books.  Go,  go  and  see  after  your 
mother." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  21 

Maggie  shut  up  the  book  at  once,  with  a  sense 
of  disgrace,  but  not  being  inclined  to  see  after  her 
mother,  she  compromised  the  matter  by  going  into 
a  dark  corner  behind  her  father's  chair,  and  nursing 
her  doll,  towards  which  she  had  an  occasional  fit  of 
fondness  in  Tom's  absence,  neglecting  its  toilet,  but 
lavishing  so  many  warm  kisses  on  it  that  the  waxen 
cheeks  had  a  wasted  unhealthy  appearance. 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  the  like  on  't  ? "  said  Mr. 
Tulliver,  as  Maggie  retired.  "  It 's  a  pity  but  what 
she  'd  been  the  lad,  —  she  'd  ha'  been  a  match  for  the 
lawyers,  she  would.  It 's  the  wonderful'st  thing  "  — 
here  he  lowered  his  voice  —  "  as  I  picked  the  mother 
because  she  was  n't  o'er-'cute  —  bein'  a  good-looking 
woman  too,  an'  come  of  a  rare  family  for  managing ; 
but  I  picked  her  from  her  sisters  o'  purpose,  'cause 
she  was  a  bit  weak,  like ;  for  I  was  n't  a-goin'  to  be 
told  the  rights  o'  things  by  my  own  fireside.  But 
you  see  when  a  man  's  got  brains  himself,  there  's 
no  knowing  where  they'll  run  to;  an'  a  pleasant 
sort  o'  soft  woman  may  go  on  breeding  you  stupid 
lads  and  'cute  wenches,  till  it 's  like  as  if  the  world 
was  turned  topsy-turvy.  It 's  an  uncommon  puzzlin' 
thing." 

Mr.  Eiley's  gravity  gave  way,  and  he  shook  a 
little  under  the  application  of  his  pinch  of  snuff, 
before  he  said,  — 

"  But  your  lad 's  not  stupid,  is  he  ?  I  saw  him, 
when  I  was  here  last,  busy  making  fishing-tackle ; 
he  seemed  quite  up  to  it." 

"  Well,  he  is  n't  not  to  say  stupid,  —  he 's  got  a 
notion  o'  things  out  o'  door,  an'  a  sort  o'  common- 
sense,  as  he  'd  lay  hold  o'  things  by  the  right 
handle.  But  he  's  slow  with  his  tongue,  you  see, 
and  he  reads  but  poorly,  and  can't  abide  the  books, 


22  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  spells  all  wrong,  they  tell  me,  an'  as  shy  as  can 
be  wi'  strangers,  an'  you  never  hear  him  say  'cute 
things  like  the  little  wench.  Now,  what  I  want  is 
to  send  him  to  a  school  where  they  '11  make  him  a 
bit  nimble  with  his  tongue  and  his  pen,  and  make  a 
smart  chap  of  him.  I  want  my  son  to  be  even  wi' 
these  fellows  as  have  got  the  start  o'  me  with  hav- 
ing better  schooling.  Not  but  what,  if  the  world 
had  been  left  as  God  made  it,  I  could  ha'  seen  my 
way,  and  held  my  own  wi'  the  best  of  'em ;  but 
things  have  got  so  twisted  round  and  wrapped  up  i' 
unreasonable  words,  as  are  n't  a  bit  like  'em,  as  I  'm 
clean  at  fault,  often  an'  often.  Everything  winds 
about  so, —  the  more  straightforrard  you  are,  the 
more  you  're  puzzled." 

Mr.  Tulliver  took  a  draught,  swallowed  it  slowly, 
and  shook  his  head  in  a  melancholy  manner,  con- 
scious of  exemplifying  the  truth  that  a  perfectly 
sane  intellect  is  hardly  at  home  in  this  insane 
world. 

"  You  're  quite  in  the  right  of  it,  Tulliver,"  ob- 
served Mr.  Kiley.  "  Better  spend  an  extra  hundred 
or  two  on  your  son's  education,  than  leave  it  him 
in  your  will.  I  know  I  should  have  tried  to  do  so 
by  a  son  of  mine,  if  I  'd  had  one,  though,  God  knows, 
I  have  n't  your  ready  money  to  play  with,  Tulliver ; 
and  I  have  a  houseful  of  daughters  into  the  bargain." 

"  I  dare  say,  now,  you  know  of  a  school  as  'ud  be 
just  the  thing  for  Tom,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  not  diverted 
from  his  purpose  by  any  sympathy  with  Mr.  Riley's 
deficiency  of  ready  cash. 

Mr.  Riley  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  and  kept  Mr. 
Tulliver  in  suspense  by  a  silence  that  seemed  de- 
liberative, before  he  said,  — 

"  I  know  of  a  very  fine  chance  for  any  one  that 's 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  23 

got  the  necessary  money,  and  that 's  what  you  have, 
Tulliver.  The  fact  is,  I  would  n't  recommend  any 
friend  of  mine  to  send  a  boy  to  a  regular  school,  if 
he  could  afford  to  do  better.  But  if  any  one  wanted 
his  boy  to  get  superior  instruction  and  training, 
where  he  would  be  the  companion  of  his  master, 
and  that  master  a  first-rate  fellow,  —  I  know  his 
man.  I  would  n't  mention  the  chance  to  every- 
body, because  I  don't  think  everybody  would  suc- 
ceed in  getting  it,  if  he  were  to  try ;  but  I  mention 
it  to  you,  Tulliver,  —  between  ourselves." 

The  fixed  inquiring  glance  with  which  Mr.  Tul- 
liver had  been  watching  his  friend's  oracular  face 
became  quite  eager. 

"  Ay,  now,  let 's  hear,"  he  said,  adjusting  himself 
in  his  chair  with  the  complacency  of  a  person  who 
is  thought  worthy  of  important  communications. 

"  He  's  an  Oxford  man,"  said  Mr.  Riley,  senten- 
tiously,  shutting  his  mouth  close,  and  looking  at 
Mr.  Tulliver  to  observe  the  effect  of  this  stimulating 
information. 

"  What !  a  parson  ? "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  rather 
doubtfully. 

"  Yes,  and  an  M.  A.  The  bishop,  I  understand, 
thinks  very  highly  of  him :  why,  it  was  the  bishop 
who  got  him  his  present  curacy." 

"  Ah  ? "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  to  whom  one  thing  was 
as  wonderful  as  another  concerning  these  unfamiliar 
phenomena.  "But  what  can  he  want  wi'  Tom, 
then  ? " 

"  Why,  the  fact  is,  he 's  fond  of  teaching,  and 
wishes  to  keep  up  his  studies,  and  a  clergyman 
has  but  little  opportunity  for  that  in  his  parochial 
duties.  He  's  willing  to  take  one  or  two  boys  as 
pupils  to  fill  up  his  time  profitably.  The  boys  would 


24  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

be  quite  of  the  family, — the  finest  thing  in  the  world 
for  them ;  under  Stelling's  eye  continually." 

"  But  do  you  think  they  'd  give  the  poor  lad  twice 
o'  pudding  ? "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  was  now  in 
her  place  again.  "  He 's  such  a  boy  for  pudding  as 
never  was ;  an'  a  growing  boy  like  that,  —  it 's  dread- 
ful to  think  o'  their  stintin'  him." 

"  And  what  money  'ud  he  want  ? "  said  Mr.  Tul- 
liver, whose  instinct  told  him  that  the  services  of 
this  admirable  M.  A.  would  bear  a  high  price. 

"  Why,  I  know  of  a  clergyman  who  asks  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  with  his  youngest  pupils,  and  he  's 
not  to  be  mentioned  with  Stelling,  the  man  I  speak 
of.  I  know,  on  good  authority,  that  one  of  the  chief 
people  at  Oxford  said,  '  Stelling  might  get  the  high- 
est honours  if  he  chose.'  But  he  did  n't  care  about 
university  honours.  He 's  a  quiet  man,  —  not  noisy." 

"Ah,  a  deal  better,  —  a  deal  better,''  said  Mr. 
Tulliver ;  "  but  a  hundred  and  fifty 's  an  uncommon 
price.  I  never  thought  o'  payin'  so  much  as  that." 

"A  good  education,  let  me  tell  you,  Tulliver, — a 
good  education  is  cheap  at  the  money.  But  Stelling 
is  moderate  in  his  terms,  —  he 's  not  a  grasping  man. 
I  've  no  doubt  he  'd  take  your  boy  at  a  hundred,  and 
that's  what  you  wouldn't  get  many  other  clergy- 
men to  do.  I  '11  write  to  him  about  it,  if  you  like." 

Mr.  Tulliver  rubbed  his  knees,  and  looked  at  the 
carpet  in  a  meditative  manner. 

"  But  belike  he 's  a  bachelor,"  observed  Mrs.  Tul- 
liver in  the  interval,  "  an'  I  've  no  opinion  o'  house- 
keepers. There  was  my  brother,  as  is  dead  an'  gone, 
had  a  housekeeper  once,  an'  she  took  half  the  feathers 
out  o'  the  best  bed,  an'  packed  'em  up  an*  sent  'em 
away.  An'  it 's  unknown  the  linen  she  made  away 
with,  —  Stott  her  name  was.  It  'ud  break  my  heart 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  25 

to  send  Tom  where  there 's  a  housekeeper,  an'  I  hope 
you  won't  think  of  it,  Mr.  Tulliver." 

"You  may  set  your  mind  at  rest  on  that  score, 
Mrs.  Tulliver,"  said  Mr.  Riley,  "  for  Stelling  is  mar- 
ried to  as  nice  a  little  woman  as  any  man  need  wish 
for  a  wife.  There  is  n't  a  kinder  little  soul  in  the 
world;  I  know  her  family  well.  She  has  very 
much  your  complexion, —  light  curly  hair.  She 
comes  of  a  good  Mudport  family,  and  it's  not  every 
offer  that  would  have  been  acceptable  in  that 
quarter.  But  Stelling 's  not  an  every-day  man. 
Rather  a  particular  fellow  as  to  the  people  he 
chooses  to  be  connected  with.  But  1  think  he 
would  have  no  objection  to  take  your  son, —  I  think 
he  would  not,  on  my  representation." 

"  I  don't  know  what  he  could  have  against  the 
lad,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  a  slight  touch  of 
motherly  indignation ;  "  a  nice  fresh-skinned  lad 
as  anybody  need  wish  to  see." 

"  But  there 's  one  thing  I  'm  thinking  on,"  said 
Mr.  Tulliver,  turning  his  head  on  one  side  and 
looking  at  Mr.  Riley,  after  a  long  perusal  of  the 
carpet.  "Wouldn't  a  parson  be  almost  too  high- 
learnt  to  bring  up  a  lad  to  be  a  man  o'  business  ? 
My  notion  o'  the  parsons  was  as  they  'd  got  a  sort 
o'  learning  as  lay  mostly  out  o'  sight.  And  that 
is  n't  what  I  want  for  Tom.  I  want  him  to  know 
figures,  and  write  like  print,  and  see  into  thingSj 
quick,  and  know  what  folks  mean,  and  how  to! 
wrap  things  up  in  words  as  are  n't  actionable.  It 's 
an  uncommon  fine  thing,  that  is,"  concluded  Mr. 
Tulliver,  shaking  his  head,  "  when  you  can  let  a 
man  know  what  you  think  of  him  without  paying 
for  it." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Tulliver,"  said  Mr.  Riley,  "  you  're 


26  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

quite  under  a  mistake  about  the  clergy  ;  all  the  best 
schoolmasters  are  of  the  clergy.  The  schoolmasters 
who  are  not  clergymen,  are  a  very  low  set  of  men 
generally  —  " 

"  Ay,  that  Jacobs  is,  at  the  'cademy,"  interposed 
Mr.  Tulliver. 

"To  be  sure,  —  men  who  have  failed  in  other 
trades,  most  likely.  Now  a  clergyman  is  a  gentle- 
man by  profession  and  education  ;  and  besides  that, 
he  has  the  knowledge  that  will  ground  a  boy,  and 
prepare  him  for  entering  on  any  career  with  credit. 
There  may  be  some  clergymen  who  are  mere  book- 
men ;  but  you  may  depend  upon  it,  Stelling  is  not 
one  of  them,  —  a  man  that 's  wide  awake,  let  me  tell 
you.  Drop  him  a  hint,  and  that's  enough.  You 
talk  of  figures,  now ;  you  have  only  to  say  to  Stell- 
ing, '  I  want  my  son  to  be  a  thorough  arithmetician,' 
and  you  may  leave  the  rest  to  him." 

Mr.  Riley  paused  a  moment,  while  Mr.  Tulliver, 
somewhat  reassured  as  to  clerical  tutorship,  was 
inwardly  rehearsing  to  an  imaginary  Mr.  Stelling 
the  statement,  "  I  want  my  son  to  know  'rethmetic." 

"  You  see,  my  dear  Tulliver,"  Mr.  Riley  continued, 
"when  you  get  a  thoroughly  educated  man,  like 
Stelling,  he 's  at  no  loss  to  take  up  any  branch  of 
instruction.  When  a  workman  knows  the  use  of 
his  tools,  he  can  make  a  door  as  well  as  a  window." 

"  Ay,  that 's  true,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  almost  con- 
vinced now  that  the  clergy  must  be  the  best  of 
schoolmasters. 

"  Well,  I  '11  tell  you  what  T  '11  do  for  you,"  said 
Mr.  Riley,  "  and  I  would  n't  do  it  for  everybody. 
I  '11  see  Stelling's  father-in-law,  or  drop  him  a  line 
when  I  get  back  to  Mudport,  to  say  that  you  wish 
to  place  your  boy  with  his  son-in-law,  and  I  dare 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  2> 

say  Stalling  will  write  to  you,  and  send  you  his 
terms." 

"  But  there 's.  no  hurry,  is  there  ? "  said  Mrs. 
Tulliver ;  "for  >  hope,  Mr.  Tulliver, 'you  won't  let 
Tom  begin  at  his  new  school  before  Midsummer. 
He  began  at  the  'cademy  at  the  Lady  Day  quarter, 
and  you  see  what  good's  come  of  it." 

"Ay,  ay,  Bessy,  never  brew  wi'  bad  malt  upo' 
Michaelmas-day,  else  you  '11  have  a  poor  tap,"  said 
Mr.  Tulliver,  winking  and  smiling  at  Mr.  Riley 
with  the  natural  pride  of  a  man  who  has  a  buxom 
wife  conspicuously  his  inferior  in  intellect.  "  But 
it's  true  there's  no  hurry,  —  you've  hit  it  there, 
Bessy." 

"  It  might  be  as  well  not  to  defer  the  arrange- 
ment too  long,"  said  Mr.  Riley,  quietly ;  "  for  Stell- 
ing  may  have  propositions  from  other  parties,  and 
I  know  he  would  not  take  more  than  two  or  three 
boarders,  if  so  many.  If  I  were  you,  I  think  I 
would  enter  on  the  subject  with  Stelling  at  once : 
there's  no  necessity  for  sending  the  boy  before 
Midsummer,  but  I  would  be  on  the  safe  side,  and 
make  sure  that  nobody  forestalls  you." 

"  Ay,  there 's  summat  in  that,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver. 

"  Father,"  broke  in  Maggie,  who  had  stolen  un- 
perceived  to  her  father's  elbow  again,  listening  with 
parted  lips,  while  she  held  her  doll  topsy-turvy, 
and  crushed  its  nose  against  the  wood  of  the  chair,  — 
'•'  father,  is  it  a  long  way  off  where  Tom  is  to  go  ? 
sha'n't  we  ever  go  to  see  him  ? " 

"  I  don't  know,  my  wench,"  said  the  father, 
tenderly.  "  Ask  Mr.  Riley  ;  he  knows." 

Maggie  came  round  promptly  in  front  of  Mr. 
Riley,  and  said,  "  How  far  is  it,  please,  sir  ?  " 

"  Oh,  a  long,  long  way  off,"  that  gentleman  an- 


28  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

swered,  being  of  opinion  that  children,  when  they 
are  not  naughty,  should  always  be  spoken  to 
jocosely.  "  You  must  borrow  the  seven-leagued 
boots  to  get  to  him." 

"  That 's  nonsense !  "  said  Maggie,  tossing  her 
head  haughtily,  and  turning  away,  with  the  tears 
springing  in  her  eyes.  She  began  to  dislike  Mr. 
Riley :  it  was  evident  he  thought  her  silly  and  of 
no  consequence. 

"  Hush,  Maggie !  for  shame  of  you,  asking  ques- 
tions and  chattering,"  said  her  mother.  "Come 
and  sit  down  on  your  little  stool  and  hold  your 
tongue,  do !  But,"  added  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  had  her 
own  alarm  awakened,  "  is  it  so  far  off  as  I  could  n't 
wash  him  and  mend  him  ? " 

"  About  fifteen  miles,  that 's  all,"  said  Mr.  Eiley. 
•'  You  can  drive  there  and  back  in  a  day  quite  com- 
fortably. Or  —  Stelling  is  a  hospitable,  pleasant 
man  —  he'd  be  glad  to  have  you  stay." 

"  But  it 's  too  far  off  for  the  linen,  I  doubt,"  said 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  sadly. 

The  entrance  of  supper  opportunely  adjourned  this 
difficulty,  and  relieved  Mr.  Kiley  from  the  labour  of 
suggesting  some  solution  or  compromise,  —  a  labour 
which  he  would  otherwise  doubtless  have  under- 
taken ;  for,  as  you  perceive,  he  was  a  man  of  very 
obliging  manners.  And  he  had  really  given  himself 
the  trouble  of  recommending  Mr.  Stelling  to  his 
friend  Tulliver  without  any  positive  expectation  of  a 
a  solid,  definite  advantage  resulting  to  himself,  not- 
withstanding the  subtle  indications  to  the  contrary 
which  might  have  misled  a  too  sagacious  observer. 
For  there  is  nothing  more  widely  misleading  than 
sagacity  if  it  happens  to  get  on  a  wrong  scent ;  and 
sagacity,  persuaded  that  men  usually  act  and  speak 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  29 

from  distinct  motives,  with  a  consciously  proposed 
end  in  view,  is  certain  to  waste  its  energies  on  imagi- 
nary game.  Plotting  covetousness  and  deliberate 
contrivance,  in  order  to  compass  a  selfish  end,  are 
nowhere  abundant  but  in  the  world  of  the  dramatist : 
they  demand  too  intense  a  mental  action  for  many 
of  our  fellow-parishioners  to  be  guilty  of  them.  It 
is  easy  enough  to  spoil  the  lives  of  our  neighbours 
without  taking  so  much  trouble:  we  can  do  it  by 
lazy  acquiescence  and  lazy  omission,  by  trivial  falsi- 
ties for  which  we  hardly  know  a  reason,  by  small 
frauds  neutralized  by  small  extravagances,  by  mala- 
droit flatteries,  and  clumsily  improvized  insinuations. 
We  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  most  of  us,  with  a 
small  family  of  immediate  desires,  —  we  do  little 
else  than  snatch  a  mors2l  to  satisfy  the  hungry 
brood,  rarely  thinking  of  seed-corn  or  the  next 
year's  crop. 

Mr.  Riley  was  a  man  of  business,  and  not  cold 
towards  his  own  interest,  yet  even  he  was  more 
under  the  influence  of  small  promptings  than  of 
far-sighted  designs.  He  had  no  private  understand- 
ing with  the  Eev.  Walter  Stelling  ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  knew  very  little  of  that  M.  A.  and  his  acquire- 
ments, —  not  quite  enough  perhaps  to  warrant  so 
strong  a  recommendation  of  him  as  he  had  given 
to  his  friend  Tulliver.  But  he  believed  Mr.  Stelling 
to  be  an  excellent  classic,  for  Gadsby  had  said  so, 
and  Gadsby's  first  cousin  was  an  Oxford  tutor; 
which  was  better  ground  for  the  belief  even  than  his 
own  immediate  observation  would  have  been,  for 
though  Mr.  Kiley  had  received  a  tincture  of  the 
classics  at  the  great  Mudport  Free  School,  and  had 
a  sense  of  understanding  Latin  generally,  his  com- 
prehension of  any  particular  Latin  was  not  ready 


30  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Doubtless  there  remained  a  subtle  aroma  from  hig 
juvenile  contact  with  the  "  De  Senectute,"  and  the 
Fourth  Book  of  the  "  ^Eneid,"  but  it  had  ceased  to 
be  distinctly  recognizable  as  classical,  and  was 
only  perceived  in  the  higher  finish  and  force  of  his 
auctioneering  style.  Then,  Stelling  was  an  Oxford 
man,  and  the  Oxford  men  were  always  —  no,  no,  it 
was  the  Cambridge  men  who  were  always  good 
mathematicians.  But  a  man  who  had  had  a  univer- 
sity education  could  teach  anything  he  liked  ;  espe- 
cially a  man  like  Stelling,  who  had  made  a  speech  at 
a  Mudport  dinner  on  a  political  occasion,  and  had 
acquitted  himself  so  well  that  it  was  generally  re- 
marked this  son-in-law  of  Timpson's  was  a  sharp 
fellow.  It  was  to  be  expected  of  a  Mudport  man, 
from  the  parish  of  St.  Ursula,  that  he  would  not 
omit  to  do  a  good  turn  to  a  son-in-law  of  Timpson's, 
for  Timpson  was  one  of  the  most  useful  and  influ- 
ential men  in  the  parish,  and  had  a  good  deal  of 
business,  which  he  knew  how  to  put  into  the  right 
hands.  Mr.  Riley  liked  such  men,  quite  apart  from 
any  money  which  might  b3  diverted,  through  their 
good  judgment,  from  less  worthy  pockets  into  his 
own  ;  and  it  would  be  a  satisfaction  to  him  to  say 
to  Timpson  on  his  return  home,  "  I  've  secured  a 
good  pupil  for  your  son-in-law."  Timpson  had  a 
large  family  of  daughters;  Mr.  Riley  felt  for  him; 
besides,  Louisa  Timpson's  face,  with  its  light  curls, 
had  been  a  familiar  object  to  him  over  the  pew 
wainscot  on  a  Sunday  for  nearly  fifteen  years:  it 
was  natural  her  husband  should  be  a  commend- 
able tutor.  Moreover,  Mr.  Riley  knew  of  no  other 
schoolmaster  whom  he  had  any  ground  for  rec- 
ommending in  preference :  why  then  should  he 
not  recommend  Stelling?  His  friend  Tulliver  had 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  31 

asked  him  for  an  opinion  ;  it  is  always  chilling,  in 
friendly  intercourse,  to  say  you  have  no  opinion  to 
give.  And  if  you  deliver  an  opinion  at  all,  it  is 
mere  stupidity  not  to  do  it  with  an  air  of  conviction 
and  well-founded  knowledge.  You  make  it  your 
own  in  uttering  it,  and  naturally  get  fond  of  it. 
Thus  Mr.  Kiley,  knowing  no  harm  of  Stelling  to 
begin  with,  and  wishing  him  well,  so  far  as  he  had 
any  wishes  at  all  concerning  him,  had  no  sooner 
recommended  him  than  he  began  to  think  with 
admiration  of  a  man  recommended  on  such  high 
authority,  and  would  soon  have  gathered  so  warm 
an  interest  on  the  subject  that  if  Mr.  Tulliver  had 
in  the  end  declined  to  send  Tom  to  Stelling,  Mr. 
Eiley  would  have  thought  his  "  friend  of  the  old 
school"  a  thoroughly  pig-headed  fellow. 

If  you  blame  Mr.  Riley  very  severely  for  giving 
a  recommendation  on  such  slight  grounds,  I  must 
say  you  are  rather  hard  upon  him.  Why  should 
an  auctioneer  and  appraiser  thirty  years  ago,  who 
had  as  good  as  forgott3n  his  free-school  Latin,  be 
expected  to  manifest  a  delicate  scrupulosity  which 
is  not  always  exhibited  by  gentlemen  of  the  learned 
professions,  even  in  our  present  advanced  stage  of 
morality  ? 

Besides,  a  man  with  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
in  him  can  scarcely  abstain  from  doing  a  good- 
natured  action,  and  one  cannot  be  good-natured  all 
round.  Nature  herself  occasionally  quarters  an 
inconvenient  parasite  on  an  animal  towards  whom 
she  has  otherwise  no  ill-will.  What  then  ?  We 
admire  her  care  for  the  parasite.  If  Mr.  Eiley  had 
shrunk  from  giving  a  recommendation  that  was  not 
based  on  valid  evidence,  he  would  not  have  helped 
Mr.  Stelling  to  a  paying  pupil,  and  that  would  nob 


32  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

have  been  so  well  for  the  reverend  gentleman. 
Consider,  too,  that  all  the  pleasant  little  dim  ideas 
and  complacencies  —  of  standing  well  with  Tirnp- 
son,  of  dispensing  advice  when  he  was  asked  for  it, 
of  impressing  his  friend  Tulliver  with  additional  re- 
spect, of  saying  something,  and  saying  it  emphati- 
cally, with  other  inappreciably  minute  ingredients 
that  went  along  with  the  warm  hearth  and  the 
brandy-and-water  to  make  up  Mr.  Biley's  con- 
sciousness on  this  occasion  —  would  have  been  a 
mere  blank. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TOM   IS   EXPECTED. 

IT  was  a  heavy  disappointment  to  Maggie  that  she 
was  not  allowed  to  go  with  her  father  in  the  gig 
when  he  went  to  fetch  Tom  home  from  the  academy  ; 
but  the  morning  was  too  wet,  Mrs.  Tulliver  said, 
for  a  little  girl  to  go  out  in  her  best  bonnet. 
Maggie  took  the  opposite  view  very  strongly,  and 
it  was  a  direct  consequence  of  this  difference  of 
opinion  that  when  her  mother  was  in  the  act  oi 
brushing  out  the  reluctant  black  crop,  Maggie 
suddenly  rushed  from  under  her  hands  and  dipped 
her  head  in  a  basin  of  water  standing  near,  —  in 
the  vindictive  determination  that  there  should  be 
no  more  chance  of  curls  that  day. 

"  Maggie,  Maggie  ! "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Tulliver,  sit- 
ting stout  and  helpless  with  the  brushes  on  her 
lap,  "  what  is  to  become  of  you  if  you  're  so 
naughty  ?  I  '11  tell  your  aunt  Glegg  and  your 
aunt  Pullet  when  they  come  next  week,  and 
they  '11  never  love  you  any  more.  Oh  dear,  oh 
dear  !  look  at  your  clean  pinafore,  wet  from  top 
to  bottom.  Folks  'ull  think  it's  a  judgment  on 
me  as  I  've  got  such  a  child,  —  they  '11  think  I  've 
done  summat  wicked." 

Before  this  remonstrance  was  finished,  Maggie 
was  already  out  of  hearing,  making  her  way  towards 
the  great  attic  that  ran  under  the  old  high-pitched 
roof,  shaking  the  water  from  her  black  locks  as  she 


34  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

ran,  like  a  Skye  terrier  escaped  from  his  bath.  This 
attic  was  Maggie's  favourite  retreat  on  a  wet  day, 
when  the  weather  was  not  too  cold;  here  she 
fretted  out  all  her  ill-humours,  and  talked  aloud  to 
the  worm-eaten  floors  and  the  worm-eaten  shelves, 
and  the  dark  rafters  festooned  with  cobwebs ;  and 
here  she  kept  a  Fetish  which  she  punished  for  all 
her  misfortunes.  This  was  the  trunk  of  a  large 
wooden  doll,  which  once  stared  with  the  roundest 
of  eyes  above  the  reddest  of  cheeks,  but  was  now 
entirely  defaced  by  a  long  career  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing. Three  nails  driven  into  the  head  commemo- 
rated as  many  crises  in  Maggie's  nine  years  of 
earthly  struggle ;  that  luxury  of  vengeance  having 
been  suggested  to  her  by  the  picture  of  Jael  de- 
stroying Sisera  in  the  old  Bible.  The  last  nail 
had  been  driven  in  with  a  fiercer  stroke  than 
usual,  for  the  Fetish  on  that  occasion  represented 
aunt  Glegg.  But  immediately  afterwards  Maggie 
had  reflected  that  if  she  drove  many  nails  in,  she 
would  not  be  so  well  able  to  fancy  that  the  head 
was  hurt  when  she  knocked  it  against  the  wall, 
nor  to  comfort  it,  and  make  believe  to  poultice  it, 
when  her  fury  was  abated;  for  even  aunt  Glegg 
would  be  pitiable  when  she  had  been  hurt  very 
much,  and  thoroughly  humiliated,  so  as  to  beg 
her  niece's  pardon.  Since  then  she  had  driven 
no  more  nails  in,  but  had  soothed  herself  by  alter- 
nately grinding  and  beating  the  wooden  head 
against  the  rough  brick  of  the  great  chimneys  that 
made  two  square  pillars  supporting  the  roof.  That 
was  what  she  did  this  morning  on  reaching  the 
attic,  sobbing  all  the  while  with  a  passion  that 
expelled  every  other  form  of  consciousness,  —  even 
the  memory  of  the  grievance  that  had  caused  it. 


BOY  AND   GIRL.  35 

As  at  last  the  sobs  were  getting  quieter,  and  the 
grinding  less  fierce,  a  sudden  beam  of  sunshine, 
falling  through  the  wire  lattice  across  the  worm- 
eaten  shelves,  made  her  throw  away  the  Fetish 
and  run  to  the  window.  The  sun  was  leally  break- 
ing out ;  the  sound  of  the  mill  seemed  cheerful 
again  ;  the  granary  doors  were  open ;  and  there  was 
Yap,  the  queer  white-and-brown  terrier,  with  one 
ear  turned  back,  trotting  about  and  sniffing  vaguely, 
as  if  he  were  in  search  of  a  companion.  It  was 
irresistible.  Maggie  tossed  her  hair  back  and  ran 
downstairs,  seized  her  bonnet  without  putting  it 
on,  peeped,  and  then  dashed  along  the  passage 
lest  she  should  encounter  her  mother,  and  was 
quickly  out  in  the  yard,  whirling  round  like  a 
Pythoness,  and  singing  as  she  whirled,  "Yap,  Yap, 
Tom's  coming  home!"  while  Yap  danced  and 
barked  round  her,  as  much  as  to  say,  if  there 
was  any  noise  wanted  he  was  the  dog  for  it. 

"Hegh,  hegh,  Miss!  you  11  make  yourself  giddy, 
an'  tumble  down  i'  the  dirt,"  said  Luke,  the  head 
miller,  a  tall  broad-shouldered  man  of  forty,  black- 
eyed  and  black-haired,  subdued  by  a  general  meali- 
ness, like  an  auricula. 

Maggie  paused  in  her  whirling  and  said,  stagger- 
ing a  little,  "  Oh  no,  it  does  n't  make  me  giddy, 
Luke ;  may  I  go  into  the  mill  with  you  ? " 

Maggie  loved  to  linger  in  the  great  spaces  of 
the  mill,  and  often  came  out  with  her  black  hair 
powdered  to  a  soft  whiteness  that  made  her  dark 
eyes  flash  out  with  new  fire.  The  resolute  din, 
the  unresting  motion  of  the  great  stones,  giving 
her  a  dim  delicious  awe  as  at  the  presence  of  an 
uncontrollable  force,  —  the  meal  forever  pouring, 
pouring,  —  the  fine  white  powder  softening  all  sur- 


36  THE  MILL   ON  THE  FLOSS. 

faces,  and  making  the  very  spider-nets  look  like 
a  faery  lace-work,  —  the  sweet  pure  scent  of  the 
meal,  —  all  helped  to  make  Maggie  feel  that  the 
mill  was  a  little  world  apart  from  her  outside 
every-day  life.  The  spiders  were  especially  a  sub- 
ject of  speculation  with  her.  She  wondered  if 
they  had  any  relatives  outside  the  mill,  for  in  that 
case  there  must  be  a  painful  difficulty  in  their 
family  intercourse,  —  a  fat  and  floury  spider,  accus- 
tomed to  take  his  fly  well  dusted  with  meal,  must 
suffer  a  little  at  a  cousin's  table  where  the  fly  was 
au  naturel,  and  the  lady-spiders  must  be  mutually 
shocked  at  each  other's  appearance.  But  the  part 
of  the  mill  she  liked  best  was  the  topmost  story, 

—  the  corn-hutch,  where  there  were  the  great  heaps 
of  grain,  which  she  could  sit  on  and   slide  down 
continually.     She  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  this 
recreation  as  she  conversed  with   Luke,  to  whom 
she  was  very  communicative,  wishing  him  to  think 
well  of  her  understanding,  as  her  father  did. 

Perhaps   she   felt   it    necessary   to    recover 
position  with  him  on  the  present  occasion,  for,  u 
she  sat  sliding  on  the  heap  of  grain  near  which  he 
was  busying  himself,  she  said,  at  that  shrill  pitch 
which  was  requisite  in  mill- society,  — 

"  I  think  you  never  read  any  book  but  the  Bible, 

—  did  you,  Luke  ? " 

"Nay,  Miss,  —  an'  not  much  o'  that,"  said  Lu.,  ; 
with  great  frankness.  "  I  'm  no  reader,  I  are  n't." 

"  But  if  I  lent  you  one  of  my  books,  Luke  ?  I  've 
not  got  any  very  pretty  books  that  would  be  easy 
for  you  to  read ;  but  there 's  '  Pug's  Tour  of  Europe,' 

—  that  would  tell  you  all  about  the  different  sorts 
of  people  in  the  world,  and  if  you  didn't  under- 
stand the  reading,  the  pictures  would  help  you,  — 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  37 

they  show  the  looks  and  ways  of  the  people,  and 
what  they  do.  There  are  the  Dutchmen,  very  fat, 
and  smoking,  you  know,  —  and  one  sitting  on  a 
barrel." 

"  Nay,  Miss,  I  'n  no  opinion  o'  Dutchmen.  There 
be  n't  much  good  i'  knowin'  about  them." 

"  But  they  're  our  fellow-creatures,  Luke,  —  we 
ought  to  know  about  our  fellow-creatures." 

"  Not  much  o'  fellow-creaturs,  I  think,  Miss  ;  all 
I  know  —  my  old  master,  as  war  a  knowin'  man, 
used  to  say,  says  he,  '  If  e'er  I  sow  my  wheat  wi'out 
brinin',  I 'm  a  Dutchman,'  says  he;  an'  that  war 
as  much  as  to  say  as  a  Dutchman  war  a  fool,  or 
next  door.  Nay,  nay,  I  are  n't  goin'  to  bother  my- 
sen  about  Dutchmen.  There  's  fools  enoo  —  an' 
rogues  enoo  —  wi'out  lookin'  i'  books  for  'em." 

"  Oh,  well,"  said  Maggie,  rather  foiled  by  Luke's 
unexpectedly  decided  views  about  Dutchmen,  "  per- 
haps you  would  like  '  Animated  Nature  '  better,  — 
that's  not  Dutchmen,  you  know,  but  elephants  and 
kangaroos,  and  the  civet-cat,  and  the  sun-fish,  and 
a  bird  sitting  on  its  tail,  —  I  forget  its  name. 
There  are  countries  full  of  those  creatures,  instead 
of  horses  and  cows,  you  know.  Shouldn't  you 
like  to  know  about  them,  Luke  ? " 

"  Nay,  Miss,  I  'n  got  to  keep  count  o'  the  flour  an' 
corn,  —  I  can't  do  wi'  knowin'  so  many  things  be- 
sides my  work.  That's  what  brings  folks  to  the 
gallows,  —  knowin'  everything  but  what  they  'n  got 
to  get  their  bread  by.  An'  they're  mostly  lies,  I 
think,  what 's  printed  i'  the  books :  them  printed 
sheets  are,  anyhow,  as  the  men  cry  i'  the  streets." 

"  Why,  you  're  like  my  brother  Tom,  Luke,"  said 
Maggie,  wishing  to  turn  the  conversation  agreeably ; 
"  Tom 's  not  fond  of  reading.  I  love  Tom  so  dearly, 


33  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Luke,  —  better  than  anybody  else  in  the  world. 
"When  he  grows  up,  I  shall  keep  his  house,  and  we 
shall  always  live  together.  I  can  tell  him  every- 
thing he  does  n't  know.  But  I  think  Tom 's  clever, 
for  all  he  does  n't  like  books :  he  makes  beautiful 
whipcord  and  rabbit-pens." 

"  Ah,"  said  Luke,  "  but  he  '11  be  fine  an'  vexed, 
as  the  rabbits  are  all  dead." 

"  Dv3ad  ! "  screamed  Maggie,  jumping  up  from  her 
sliding  seat  on  the  corn.  "  Oh  dear,  Luke  !  What ! 
the  lop-eared  one,  and  the  spotted  doe  that  Tom 
spent  all  his  money  to  buy  ? " 

"  As  dead  as  molas,"  said  Luke,  fetching  his  com- 
parison from  the  unmistakable  corpses  nailed  to 
the  stable-wall. 

"  Oh  dear,  Luke,"  said.  Maggie,  in  a  piteous  tone, 
while  the  big  tears  rolled  down  her  cheek  ;  "  Tom 
told  me  to  take  care  of  'em,  and  I  forgot.  What 
shall  I  do?" 

"  Well,  you  see,  Miss,  they  were  in  that  far  tool- 
house,  an'  it  was  nobody's  business  to  see  to  'em. 
I  reckon  Master  Tom  told  Harry  to  feed  'em,  but 
there 's  no  countin'  on  Harry,  —  lie 's  an  offal  crea- 
tur  as  iver  come  about  the  primises,  he  is.  He  re- 
members nothing  but  his  own  inside,  —  an'  I  wish 
it'ud  gripe  him." 

"  Oh,  Luke,  Tom  told  me  to  be  sure  and  remem- 
ber the  rabbits  every  day ;  but  how  could  I,  when 
they  did  n't  come  into  my  head,  you  know  ?  Oh, 
he  will  be  so  angry  with  me,  I  know  he  will,  and 
so  sorry  about  his  rabbits,  —  and  so  am  I  sorry. 
Oh,  what  shall  I  do  ?  " 

"Don't  you  fret,  Miss,"  said  Luke,   soothingly, 
"they're   nash   things,    them  lop-eared  rabbits,— 
they  'd  happen  ha'  died,  if  they  'd  been  fed.     Things 


BOY   AND  GIRL.  39 

out  o1  natur  niver  thrive:  God  A'mighty  doesn't 
like  'em.  He  made  the  rabbits'  ears  to  lie  back,  an' 
it's  nothin'  but  contrairiness  to  make  'em  hing 
down  like  a  mastiff  dog's.  Master  Tom  'ull  know 
better  nor  buy  such  things  another  time.  Don't 
you  fret,  Miss.  Will  you  come  along  home  wi'  me, 
and  see  my  wife  ?  I  'm  a-goin'  this  minute." 

The  invitation  offered  an  agreeable  distraction  to 
Maggie's  grief,  and  her  tears  gradually  subsided  as 
she  trotted  along  by  Luke's  side  to  his  pleasant 
cottage,  which  stood  with  its  apple  and  pear  trees, 
and  with  the  added  dignity  of  a  lean-to  pigsty,  at 
the  other  end  of  the  Mill  fields.  Mrs.  Moggs, 
Luke's  wife,  was  a  decidedly  agreeable  acquaintance. 
She  exhibited  her  hospitality  in  bread  and  treacle, 
and  possessed  various  works  of  art.  Maggie  actually 
forgot  that  she  had  any  special  cause  of  sadness 
this  morning,  as  she  stood  on  a  chair  to  look  at  a 
remarkable  series  of  pictures  representing  the  Prodi- 
gal Son  in  the  costume  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison, 
except  that,  as  might  have  bean  expected  from  his 
defective  moral  character,  he  had  not,  like  that 
accomplished  hero,  the  taste  and  strength  of  mind 
to  dispense  with  a  wig.  But  the  indefinable  weight 
the  dead  rabbits  had  left  on  her  mind  caused  her 
to  feel  more  than  usual  pity  for  the  career  of  this 
weak  young  man,  particularly  when  she  looked  at 
the  picture  where  he  leaned  against  a  tree  with  a 
flaccid  appearance,  his  knee-breeches  unbuttoned 
and  his  wig  awry,  while  the  swine,  apparently  of 
some  foreign  breed,  seemed  to  insult  him  by  their 
good  spirits  over  their  feast  of  husks. 

"  I  'm  very  glad  his  father  took  him  back  again,  — 
are  n't  you,  Luke  ? "  she  said.  "  For  he  was  very 
sorry,  you  know,  and  would  n't  do  wrong  again." 


40  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Eh,  Miss,"  said  Luke,  "  he  'd  be  no  great  shakes, 
I  doubt,  let 's  feyther  do  what  he  would  for  him." 

That  was  a  painful  thought  to  Maggie,  and  she 
wished  much  that  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
young  man  had  not  been  left  a  blank. 


CHAPTEK  V. 

TOM   COMES   HOME. 

TOM  was  to  arrive  early  in  the  afternoon,  and  there 
was  another  fluttering  heart  besides  Maggie's  when 
it  was  late  enough  for  the  sound  of  the  gig-wheels 
to  be  expected ;  for  if  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  a  strong 
feeling,  it  was  fondness  for  her  boy.  At  last  the 
sound  came,  —  that  quick  light  bowling  of  the  gig- 
wheels,  —  and  in  spite  of  the  wind,  which  was  blow- 
ing the  clouds  about,  and  was  not  likely  to  respect 
Mrs.  Tulliver's  curls  and  cap-strings,  she  came  out- 
side the  door,  and  even  held  her  hand  on  Maggie's 
offending  head,  forgetting  all  the  griefs  of  the 
morning. 

"  There  he  is,  my  sweet  lad !  But,  Lord  ha' 
mercy  !  he 's  got  never  a  collar  on ;  it 's  been  lost  on 
the  road,  I  '11  be  bound,  and  spoilt  the  set." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  stood  with  her  arms  open  ;  Maggie 
jumped  first  on  one  leg  and  then  on  the  other ; 
while  Tom  descended  from  the  gig,  and  said,  with 
masculine  reticence  as  to  the  tender  emotions, 
"  Hello  !  Yap  —  what !  are  you  there  ?  " 

Nevertheless  he  submitted  to  be  kissed  willingly 
enough,  though  Maggie  hung  on  his  neck  in  rather 
a  strangling  fashion,  while  his  blue-gray  eyes  wan- 
dered towards  the  croft  and  the  lambs  and  the 
river,  where  he  promised  himself  that  he  would 
begin  to  fish  the  first  thing  to-morrow  morning. 


42  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

He  was  one  of  those  lads  that  grow  everywhere  in 
England,  and  at  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age 
look  as  much  alike  as  goslings  :  a  lad  with  light- 
brown  hair,  cheeks  of  cream  and  roses,  full  lips, 
indeterminate  nose  and  eyebrows,  —  a  physiognomy 
in  which  it  seems  impossible  to  discern  anything 
but  the  generic  character  of  boyhood  ;  as  different 
as  possible  from  poor  Maggie's  phiz,  which  Nature 
seemed  to  have  moulded  and  coloured  with  the  most 
decided  intention.  But  that  same  Nature  has  the 
deep  cunning  which  hides  itself  under  the  appear- 
ance of  openness,  so  that  simple  people  think  they 
can  see  through  her  quite  well,  and  all  the  while 
she  is  secretly  preparing  a  refutation  of  their  con- 
fident prophecies  Under  these  average  boyish 
physiognomies  that  she  seems  to  turn  off  by  the 
gross,  she  conceals  some  of  her  most  rigid,  inflexible 
purposes,  some  of  her  most  unmodifiable  characters ; 
and  the  dark-eyed,  demonstrative,  rebellious  girl 
may  after  all  turn  out  to  be  a  passive  being  com- 
pared with  this  pink-and-white  bit  of  masculinity 
with  the  indeterminate  features. 

"  Maggie,"  said  Tom,  confidentially,  taking  her 
into  a  corner,  as  soon  as  his  mother  was  gone  out  to 
examine  his  box,  and  the  warm  parlour  had  taken  off 
the  chill  he  had  felt  from  the  long  drive,  "  you  don't 
know  what  I  've  got  in  my  pockets,"  nodding  his 
head  up  and  down  as  a  means  of  rousing  her  sense 
of  mystery. 

"  No,"  said  Maggie.  "  How  stodgy  they  look, 
Tom  !  Is  it  marls  (marbles)  or  cobnuts  ? "  Maggie's 
heart  sank  a  little,  because  Tom  always  said  it  was 
"  no  good  "  playing  with  her  at  those  games,  —  she 
played  so  badly. 

"  Marls  !  no ;  I  Ve  swopped  all  my  marls  with 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  43 

the  little  fellows,  and  cobnuts  are  no  fun,  you  silly, 
only  when  the  nuts  are  green.  But  see  here  !  " 
He  drew  something  half  out  of  his  right-hand 
pocket. 

"  What  is  it  ? "  said  Maggie,  in  a  whisper.  "  I 
can  see  nothing  but  a  bit  of  yellow." 

"Why,  it's  .  .  .  a  .  .  .  new  .  .  .  guess,  Maggie  !  " 

"  Oh,  I  cant  guess,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  impa- 
tiently. 

"  Don't  be  a  spitfire,  else  I  won't  tell  you,"  said 
Tom,  thrusting  his  hand  back  into  his  pocket,  and 
looking  determined. 

"  No,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  imploringly,  laying  hold 
of  the  arm  that  was  held  stiffly  in  the  pocket. 
"  I  'm  not  cross,  Tom ;  it  was  only  because  I  can't 
bear  guessing.  Please  be  good  to  me." 

Tom's  arm  slowly  relaxed,  and  he  said :  "  Well, 
then,  it 's  a  new  fish-line,  —  two  new  uns,  —  one  for 
you,  Maggie,  all  to  yourself.  I  would  n't  go  halves 
in  the  toffee  and  gingerbread  on  purpose  to  save  the 
money;  and  Gibson  and  Spouncer  fought  with  me 
because  I  would  n't.  And  here 's  hooks  ;  see  here  ! 
...  I  say,  won't  we  go  and  fish  to-morrow  down  by 
the  Eound  Pool  ?  And  you  shall  catch  your  own 
fish,  Maggie,  and  put  the  worms  on,  and  everything, 
—  won't  it  be  fun  ?  " 

Maggie's  answer  was  to  throw  her  arms  round 
Tom's  neck  and  hug  him,  and  hold  her  cheek  against 
his  without  speaking,  while  he  slowly  unwound 
some  of  the  line,  saying  after  a  pause,  — 

"  Was  n't  I  a  good  brother,  now,  to  buy  you  a 
line  all  to  yourself  ?  You  know,  I  need  n't  have 
bought  it,  if  I  had  n't  liked." 

"  Yes,  very,  very  good.  .  .  .  I  do  love  you,  Tom." 

Tom  had  put  the  line  back  in  his   pocket,  and 


44  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

was  looking  at  the  hooks  one  by  one,  before  he 
spoke  again. 

"  And  the  fellows  fought  me,  because  I  would  n't 
give  in  about  the  toffee." 

"  Oh  dear !  I  wish  they  would  n't  fight  at  your 
school,  Tom.  Did  n't  it  hurt  you  ? " 

"  Hurt  me  ?  no,"  said  Tom,  putting  up  the  hooks 
again,  taking  out  a  large  pocket-knife,  and  slowly 
opening  the  largest  blade,  which  he  looked  at  medi- 
tatively as  he  rubbed  his  finger  along  it.  Then  he 
added,  — 

"  I  gave  Spouncer  a  black  eye,  I  know,  —  that 's 
what  he  got  by  wanting  to  leather  me ;  I  was  n't 
going  to  go  halves  because  anybody  leathered  me." 

"  Oh,  how  brave  you  are,  Tom  !  I  think  you  're 
like  Samson.  If  there  came  a  lion  roaring  at  me, 
I  think  you  'd  fight  him,  —  would  n't  you,  Tom  ? " 

"  How  can  a  lion  come  roaring  at  you,  you  silly 
thing  ?  There  's  no  lions,  only  in  the  shows." 

"  No ;  but  if  we  were  in  the  lion  countries,  —  I 
mean  in  Africa,  where  it's  very  hot,  —  the  lions  eat 
people  there.  I  can  show  it  you  in  the  book  where 
I  read  it." 

"  Well,  I  should  get  a  gun  and  shoot  him." 

"  But  if  you  had  n't  got  a  gun  —  we  might  have 
gone  out,  you  know,  not  thinking  —  just  as  we  go 
fishing  ;  and  then  a  great  lion  might  run  towards 
us  roaring,  and  we  could  n't  get  away  from  him. 
What  should  you  do,  Tom  ?  " 

Tom  paused,  and  at  last  turned  away  contemptu- 
ously, saying,  "  But  the  lion  is  n't  coming.  What 's 
the  use  of  talking  ? " 

"But  I  like  to  fancy  how  it  would  be,"  said 
Maggie,  following  him.  "Just  think  what  you 
would  do,  Tom." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  45 

"  Oh,  don't  bother,  Maggie  !  you  're  such  a  silly  — 
I  shall  go  and  see  my  rabbits." 

Maggie's  heart  began  to  flutter  with  fear.  She 
dared  not  tell  the  sad  truth  at  once,  but  she  walked 
after  Tom  in  trembling  silence  as  he  went  out, 
thinking  how  she  could  tell  him  the  news  so  as  to 
soften  at  once  his  sorrow  and  his  anger  ;  for  Maggie 
dreaded  Tom's  anger  of  all  things,  —  it  was  quite 
a  different  anger  from  her  own. 

"  Tom,"  she  said  timidly,  when  they  were  out  of 
doors,  "how  much  money  did  you  give  for  your 
rabbits  ? " 

"  Two  half-crowns  and  a  sixpence,"  said  Tom, 
promptly. 

"  I  think  I  've  got  a  great  deal  more  than  that  in 
my  steel  purse  upstairs.  I  '11  ask  mother  to  give 
it  you." 

"  What  for  ? "  said  Tom.  "  I  don't  want  your 
money,  you  silly  thing.  I  've  got  a  great  deal  more 
money  than  you,  because  I  'm  a  boy.  I  always 
have  half-sovereigns  and  sovereigns  for  my  Christ- 
mas boxes,  because  I  shall  be  a  man,  and  you  only 
have  five-shilling  pieces,  because  you  're  only  a 
girl." 

"Well,  but,  Tom  —  if  mother  would  let  me  give 
you  two  half-crowns  and  a  sixpence  out  of  my 
purse  to  put  into  your  pocket  and  spend,  you 
know ;  and  buy  some  more  rabbits  with  it  ? " 

"  More  rabbits  ?     I  don't  want  any  more." 

"  Oh,  but,  Tom,  they  're  all  dead." 

Tom  stopped  immediately  in  his  walk,  and  turned 
round  towards  Maggie.  "  You  forgot  to  feed  'em, 
then,  and  Harry  forgot  ? "  he  said,  his  colour  heighten- 
ing for  a  moment,  but  soon  subsiding.  "  I  '11  pitch 
into  Harry,  —  I'll  have  him  turned  away.  And  I 


46  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

don't  love  you,  Maggie.  You  sha'n't  go  fishing  with 
me  to-morrow.  I  told  you  to  go  and  see  the  rabbits 
every  day."  He  walked  on  again. 

"  Yes,  but  I  forgot  —  and  I  could  n't  help  it, 
indeed,  Tom.  I  'in  so  very  sorry,"  said  Maggie, 
while  the  tears  rushed  fast. 

"  You  're  a  naughty  girl,"  said  Tom,  severely, 
"  and  I  'm  sorry  I  bought  you  the  fish-line.  I  don't 
love  you." 

"Oh,  Tom,  it 's  very  cruel,"  sobbed  Maggie.  "  I  'd 
forgive  you,  if  you  forgot  anything,  —  I  would  n't 
mind  what  you  did,  —  I  'd  forgive  you  and  love  you." 

"  Yes,  you  're  a  silly  ;  but  I  never  do  forget  things, 
—  /don't." 

"  Oh,  please  forgive  me,  Tom ;  my  heart  will 
break,"  said  Maggie,  shaking  with  sobs,  clinging 
to  Tom's  arm,  and  laying  her  wet  cheek  on  his 
shoulder. 

Tom  shook  her  off,  and  stopped  again,  saying  in 
a  peremptory  tone,  "  Now,  Maggie,  you  just  listen. 
Are  n't  I  a  good  brother  to  'you  ? " 

"Ye-ye-es,"  sobbed  Maggie,  her  chin  rising  and 
falling  convulsedly. 

"  Did  n't  I  think  about  your  fish-line  all  this 
quarter,  and  mean  to  buy  it.  and  saved  my  money 
o'  purpose,  and  would  n't  go  halves  in  the  toffee,  and 
Spouncer  fought  me  because  I  would  n't  ? " 

"  Ye-ye-es  .  .  .  and  I  ...  lo-lo-love  you  so,  Tom." 

"  But  you  're  a  naughty  girl.  Last  holidays  you 
licked  the  paint  off  my  lozenge-box,  and  the  holi- 
days before  that  you  let  the  boat  drag  my  fish-line 
down  when  I'd  set  you  to  watch  it,  and  you  pushed 
your  head  through  my  kite,  all  for  nothing." 

"  But  I  did  n't  mean,"  said  Maggie ;  "  I  could  n't 
help  it." 


BOY  AND   GIRL.  47 

"  Yes,  you  could,"  said  Tom,  "  if  you  'd  minded 
what  you  were  doing.  And  you  're  a  naughty  girl, 
and  you  sha'n't  go  fishing  with  me  to-morrow." 

With  this  terrible  conclusion,  Tom  ran  away 
from  Maggie  towards  the  mill,  meaning  to  greet 
Luke  there,  and  complain  to  him  of  Harry. 

Maggie  stood  motionless,  except  from  her  sobs, 
for  a  minute  or  two;  then  she  turned  round  and 
ran  into  the  house,  and  up  to  her  attic,  where  she 
sat  on  the  floor,  and  laid  her  head  against  the  worm- 
eaten  shelf,  with  a  crushing  sense  of  misery.  Tom 
was  come  home,  and  she  had  thought  how  happy 
she  should  be,  —  and  now  he  was  cruel  to  her. 
What  use  was  anything,  if  Tom  did  n't  love  her  ? 
Oh,  he  was  very  cruel !  Had  n't  she  wanted  to 
give  him  the  money,  and  said  how  very  sorry  she 
was  ?  She  knew  she  was  naughty  to  her  mother, 
but  she  had  never  been  naughty  to  Tom,  —  had 
never  meant  to  be  naughty  to  him. 

"  Oh,  he  is  cruel ! "  Maggie  sobbed  aloud,  finding 
a  wretched  pleasure  in  the  hollow  resonance  that 
came  through  the  long  empty  space  of  the  attic. 
She  never  thought  of  beating  or  grinding  her 
Fetish ;  she  was  too  miserable  to  be  angry. 

These  bitter  sorrows  of  childhood !  when  sorrow 
is  all  new  and  strange,  when  hope  has  not  yet  got 
wings  to  fly  beyond  the  days  and  weeks,  and  the 
Space  from  summer  to  summer  seems  measureless. 

Maggie  soon  thought  she  had  been  hours  in  the 
attic,  and  it  must  be  tea-time,  and  they  were  all 
having  their  tea,  and  not  thinking  of  her.  Well, 
then,  she  would  stay  up  there  and  starve  herself,  — • 
hide  herself  behind  the  tub,  and  stay  there  all 
night ;  and  then  they  would  all  be  frightened,  and 
Tom  would  be  sorry.  Thus  Maggie  thought  in  the 


48  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

pride  of  her  heart,  as  she  crept  behind  the  tub ;  but 
presently  she  began  to  cry  again  at  the  idea  that 
they  did  n't  mind  her  being  there.  If  she  went 
down  again  to  Tom  now,  —  would  he  forgive  her  ? 

—  perhaps  her  father  would  be  there,  and  he  would 
take  her  part.     But  then  she  wanted  Tom  to  forgive 
her  because  he  loved  her,  not  because  his  father 
told  him.     No,  she  would  never  go  down  if  Tom 
did  n't  come  to  fetch  her.     This  resolution  lasted  in 
great  intensity  for  five  dark  minutes  behind  the 
tub ;  but  then  the  need  of  being  loved,  the  strongest 
need  in  poor  Maggie's  nature,  began  to  wrestle  with 
her   pride,   and   soon    threw   it.     She   crept    from 
behind  her  tub  into  the  twilight  of  the  long  attic,  but 
just  then  she  heard  a  quick  footstep  on  the  stairs. 

Tom  had  been  too  much  interested  in  his  talk 
with  Luke,  in  going  the  round  of  the  premises, 
walking  in  and  out  where  he  pleased,  and  whittling 
sticks  without  any  particular  reason,  except  that  he 
did  n't  whittle  sticks  at  school,  to  think  of  Maggie 
and  the  effect  his  anger  had  produced  on  her.  He 
meant  to  punish  her ;  and  that  business  having  been 
performed,  he  occupied  himself  with  other  matters, 
like  a  practical  person.  But  when  he  had  been 
called  in  to  tea,  his  father  said,  "  Why,  where  's  the 
little  wench  ? "  and  Mrs.  Tulliver,  almost  at  the 
same  moment,  said,  "  Where 's  your  little  sister  ? " 

—  both  of  them  having  supposed  that  Maggie  and 
Tom  had  been  together  all  the  afternoon. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Tom.  He  did  n't  want  to 
"  tell "  of  Maggie,  though  he  was  angry  with  her ; 
for  Tom  Tulliver  was  a  lad  of  honour. 

"  What !  has  n't  she  been  playing  with  you  all 
this  while  ? "  said  the  father.  "  She  'd  been  thinking 
o'  nothing  but  your  coming  home." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  49 

"  I  have  n't  seen  her  this  two  hours,"  says  Tom, 
commencing  on  the  plumcake. 

"  Goodness  heart !  she 's  got  drownded  ! "  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  rising  from  her  seat  and  running  to 
the  window.  "  How  could  you  let  her  do  so  ? "  she 
added,  as  became  a  fearful  woman,  accusing  she 
didn't  know  whom  of  she  didn't  know  what. 

"  Nay,  nay,  she  's  none  drownded,"  said  Mr.  Tul- 
liver. "  You  Ve  been  naughty  to  her,  I  doubt, 
Tom?" 

"  I  'm  sure  I  have  n't,  father,"  said  Tom,  indig- 
nantly. "  I  think  she  's  in  the  house." 

"Perhaps  up  in  that  attic,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver, 
"  a-singing  and  talking  to  herself,  and  forgetting  all 
about  meal-times." 

"  You  go  and  fetch  her  down,  Tom,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver,  rather  sharply,  his  perspicacity  or  his 
fatherly  fondness  for  Maggie  making  him  suspect 
that  the  lad  had  been  hard  upon  "  the  little  un," 
else  she  would  never  have  left  his  side.  "  And  be 
good  to  her,  do  you  hear  ?  Else  I  '11  let  you  know 
better." 

Tom  never  disobeyed  his  father,  for  Mr.  Tulliver 
was  a  peremptory  man,  and,  as  he  said,  would  never 
let  anybody  get  hold  of  his  whip-hand ;  but  he 
went  out  rather  sullenly,  carrying  his  piece  of 
plumcake,  and  not  intending  to  reprieve  Maggie's 
punishment,  which  was  no  more  than  she  deserved. 
Tom  was  only  thirteen,  and  had  no  decided  views 
in  grammar  and  arithmetic,  regarding  them  for  the 
most  part  as  open  questions  ;  but  he  was  particularly 
clear  and  positive  on  one  point,  —  namely,  that  he 
would  punish  everybody  who  deserved  it :  why,  he 
would  n't  have  minded  being  punished  himself,  if 
he  deserved  it ;  but,  then,  he  never  did  deserve  it 

VOL    I.  —  4 


So  THE  MILL  ON   THE  FLOSS. 

It  was  Tom's  step,  then,  that  Maggie  heard  on 
the  stairs,  when  her  need  of  love  had  triumphed 
over  her  pride,  and  she  was  going  down  with  her 
swollen  eyes  and  dishevelled  hair  to  beg  for  pity. 
At  least  her  father  would  stroke  her  head  and  say, 
"  Never  mind,  my  wench."  It  is  a  wonderful  sub- 
duer,  this  need  of  love,  —  this  hunger  of  the  heart, 
—  as  peremptory  as  that  other  hunger  by  which 
Nature  forces  us  to  submit  to  the  yoke,  and  change 
the  face  of  the  world. 

But  she  knew  Tom's  step,  and  her  heart  began  to 
beat  violently  with  the  sudden  shock  of  hope.  He 
only  stood  still  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  and  said, 
"  Maggie,  you  're  to  come  down."  But  she  rushed 
to  him  and  clung  round  his  neck,  sobbing,  "  Oh, 
Tom,  please  forgive  me  —  I  can't  bear  it  —  I  will 
always  be  good  —  alvyays  remember  things  —  do 
love  me  —  please,  dear  Tom  ! " 

We  learn  to  restrain  ourselves  as  we  get  older. 
We  keep  apart  when  we  have  quarrelled,  express 
.ourselves  in  well-bred  phrases,  and  in  this  way 
preserve  a  dignified  alienation,  showing  much  firm- 
ness on  one  side,  and  swallowing  much  grief  on  the 
other.  We  no  longer  approximate  in  our  behaviour 
to  the  mere  impulsiveness  of  the  lower  animals,  but 
conduct  ourselves  in  every  respect  like  members  of 
a  highly  civilized  society.  Maggie  and  Tom  were 
still  very  much  like  young  animals,  and  so  she 
could  rub  her  cheek  against  his,  and  kiss  his  ear  in 
a  random,  sobbing  way ;  and  there  were  tender 
fibres  in  the  lad  that  had  been  used  to  answer  to 
Maggie's  fondling  ;  so  that  he  behaved  with  a  weak- 
ness quite  inconsistent  with  his  resolution  to  punish 
her  as  much  as  she  deserved :  lie  actually  began  to 
kiss  her  in  return,  and  say, — 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  51 

"Don't  cry,  then,  Magsie — here,  eat  a  bit  o" 
cake." 

Maggie's  sobs  began  to  subside,  and  she  put  out 
her  mouth  for  the  cake  and  bit  a  piece ;  and  then 
Tom  bit  a  piece,  just  for  company,  and  they  ate 
together  and  rubbed  each  other's  cheeks  and  brows 
and  noses  together,  while  they  ate,  with  a  humiliat- 
ing resemblance  to  two  friendly  ponies. 

"  Come  along,  Magsie,  and  have  tea,"  said  Tom  at 
last,  when  there  was  no  more  cake  except  what  was 
downstairs. 

So  ended  the  sorrows  of  this  day,  and  the  next 
morning  Maggie  was  trotting  with  her  own  fishing- 
rod  in  one  hand  and  a  handle  of  the  basket  in  the 
other,  stepping  always,  by  a  peculiar  gift,  in  the 
muddiest  places,  and  looking  darkly  radiant  from 
under  her  beaver-bonnet  because  Tom  was  good  to 
her.  She  had  told  Tom,  however,  that  she  should 
like  him  to  put  the  worms  on  the  hook  for  her, 
although  she  accepted  his  word  when  he  assured 
her  that  worms  could  n't  feel  (it  was  Tom's  private 
opinion  that  it  didn't  much  matter  if  they  did).  He 
knew  all  about  worms,  and  fish,  and  those  things  ; 
and  what  birds  were  mischievous,  and  how  padlocks 
opened,  and  which  way  the  handles  of  the  gates 
were  to  be  lifted.  Maggie  thought  this  sort  of 
knowledge  was  very  wonderful,  —  much  more  diffi- 
cult than  remembering  what  was  in  the  books  ;  and 
she  was  rather  in  awe  of  Tom's  superiority,  for  he 
was  the  only  person  who  called  her  knowledge 
"  stuff,"  and  did  not  feel  surprised  at  her  cleverness. 
Tom,  indeed,  was  of  opinion  that  Maggie  was  a  silly 
little  thing  ;  all  girls  were  silly,  —  they  could  n't 
throw  a  stone  so  as  to  hit  anything,  could  n't  do 
anything  with  a  pocket-knife,  and  were  frightened 


52  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

at  frogs.  Still  he  was  very  fond  of  his  sister,  and 
meant  always  to  take  care  of  her,  make  her  his 
housekeeper,  and  puni:h  her  when  she  did  wrong. 

They  were  on  their  way  to  the  Round  Pool, — 
that  wonderrul  pool,  which  the  floods  had  made  a 
long  while  ago :  no  one  knew  how  deep  it  was ;  and 
it  was  mysterious,  too,  that  it  should  be  almost  a 
perfect  round,  framed  in  with  willows  and  tall 
reads,  so  that  the  water  was  only  to  be  seen  when 
you  got  close  to  the  brink.  The  sight  of  the  old 
favourite  spot  always  heightened  Tom's  good-humour, 
and  he  spoke  to  Maggie  in  the  most  amicable 
whispers,  as  he  opened  the  precious  basket,  and 
prepared  their  tackle.  He  threw  her  line  for  her, 
and  put  the  rod  into  her  hand.  Maggie  thought  it 
probable  that  the  small  fish  would  come  to  her 
hook,  and  the  large  ones  to  Tom's.  But  she  had 
forgotten  all  about  the  fish,  and  was  looking  dreamily 
at  the  glassy  water,  when  Tom  said,  in  a  loud 
whisper,  "  Look,  look,  Maggie  ! "  and  came  running 
to  prevent  her  from  snatching  her  line  away. 

Maggie  was  frightened  lest  she  had  been  doing 
something  wrong,  as  usual ;  but  presently  Tom  drew 
out  her  line,  and  brought  a  large  tench  bouncing  on 
the  grass. 

Tom  was  excited. 

"  O  Magsie,  you  little  duck  !     Empty  the  basket." 

Maggie  was  not  conscious  of  unusual  merit,  but 
it  was  enough  that  Tom  called  her  Magsie,  and  was 
pleased  with  her.  There  was  nothing  to  mar  her 
delight  in  the  whispers  and  the  dreamy  silences, 
when  she  listened  to  the  light  dipping  sounds  of 
the  rising  fish,  and  the  gentle  rustling,  as  if  the 
willows  and  the  reeds  and  the  water  had  their 
happy  whisperings  also.  Maggie  thought  it  would 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  53 

make  a  very  nice  heaven  to  sit  by  the  pool  in  that 
way,  and  never  be  scolded.  She  never  knew  she 
had  a  bite  till  Tom  told  her ;  but  she  liked  fishing 
very  much. 

It  was  one  of  their  happy  mornings.  They  trotted 
along  and  sat  down  together,  with  no  thought  that 
life  would  ever  change  much  for  them  :  they  would 
only  get  bigger  and  not  go  to  school,  and  it  would 
always  be  like  the  holidays  ;  they  would  always 
live  together  and  be  fond  of  each  other.  And  the 
mill  with  its  booming,  —  the  great  chestnut-tree 
under  which  they  played  at  houses,  —  their  own 
little  river,  the  Ripple,  where  the  banks  seemed  like 
home,  and  Tom  was  always  seeing  the  water  rats, 
while  Maggie  gathered  the  purple  plumy  tops  of  the 
reeds,  which  she  forgot  and  dropped  afterwards,  — 
above  all,  the  great  Floss,  along  which  they  wan- 
dered with  a  sense  of  travel,  to  see  the  rushirg 
spring-tide,  the  awful  Eagre,  come  up  like  a  hungry 
monster,  or  to  see  the  Great  Ash  which  had  once 
wailed  and  groaned  like  a  man,  —  these  things  would 
always  be  just  the  same  to  them.  Tom  thought 
people  were  at  a  disadvantage  who  lived  on  any 
other  spot  of  the  globe  ;  and  Maggie,  when  she  read 
about  Christiana  passing  "the  river  over  which 
there  is  no  bridge,"  always  saw  the  Floss  between 
the  green  pastures  by  the  Great  Ash. 

Life  did  change  for  Tom  and  Maggie  ;  and  yet 
they  were  not  wrong  in  believing  that  the  thoughts 
and  loves  of  these  first  years  would  always  make 
part  of  their  lives.  We  could  never  have  loved  the 
earth  so  well  if  we  had  had  no  childhood  in  it,  —  if 
it  were  not  the  earth  where  the  same  flowers  come 
up  again  every  spring  that  we  used  to  gather  with 
our  tiny  fingers  as  we  sat  lisping  to  ourselves  on 


54  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  grass,  —  the  same  hips  and  haws  on  the  autumn 
hedgerows,  —  the  same  redbreasts  that  we  used  to 
call  "  God's  birds,"  because  they  did  no  harm  to  the 
precious  crops.  What  novelty  is  worth  that  sweet 
monotony  where  everything  is  known,  and  loved 
because  it  is  known  ? 

The  wood  I  walk  in  on  this  mild  May  day,  with 
the  young  yellow-brown  foliage  of  the  oaks  between 
me  and  the  blue  sky,  the  white  star-flowers  and  the 
blue-eyed  spesdwell  and  the  ground  ivy  at  my  feet, 
—  what  grove  of  tropic  palms,  what  strange  ferns 
or  splendid  broad-petalled  blossoms,  could  ever 
thrill  such  deep  and  delicate  fibres  within  me  as 
this  home  scene  ?  These  familiar  flowers,  these 
well-remembered  bird-notes,  this  sky,  with  its  fitful 
brightness,  these  furrowed  and  grassy  fields,  each 
with  a  sort  of  personality  given  to  it  by  the  capri- 
cious hedgerows,  —  such  things  as  these  are  the 
mother  tongue  of  our  imagination,  the  language  that 
is  laden  with  all  the  subtle  inextricable  associations 
the  fleeting  hours  of  our  childhood  left  behind  them. 
Our  delight  in  the  sunshine  on  the  deep-bladed 
grass  to-day  might  be  no  more  than  the  faint  per- 
ception of  wearied  souls,  if  it  were  not  for  the  sun- 
shine and  the  grass  in  the  far-off  years  which  still 
live  in  us,  and  transform  our  perception  into  love. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  AUNTS  AND  UNCLES  ARE  COMING. 

IT  was  Easter  week,  and  Mrs.  Tulliver's  cheesecakes 
were  more  exquisitely  light  than  usual :  "A  puff  o' 
wind  'ud  make  'em  blow  about  like  feathers,"  Kezia 
the  housemaid  said,  —  feeling  proud  to  live  under  a 
mistress  who  could  make  such  pastry  ;  so  that  no 
season  or  circumstances  could  have  been  more  pro- 
pitious for  a  family  party,  even  if  it  had  not  been 
advisable  to  consult  sister  Glegg  and  sister  Pullet 
about  Tom's  going  to  school. 

"  I  'd  as  lief  not  invite  sister  Deane  this  time,"  said 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  for  she 's  as  jealous  and  having  as 
can  be,  and  's  allays  trying  to  make  the  worst  o'  my 
poor  children  to  their  aunts  and  uncles." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver ;  "  ask  her  to  come. 
I  never  hardly  get  a  bit  o'  talk  with  Deane  now ; 
we  have  n't  had  him  this  six  months.  What 's  it 
matter  what  she  says  ?  —  my  children  need  be 
beholding  to  nobody." 

"  That 's  what  you  allays  say,  Mr.  Tulliver ;  but 
I  'm  sure  there 's  nobody  o'  your  side,  neither  aunt 
nor  uncle,  to  leave  'em  so  much  as  a  five-pound 
note  for  a  leggicy.  And  there 's  sister  Glegg,  and 
sister  Pullet  too,  saving  money  unknown,  —  for 
they  put  by  all  their  own  interest  and  butter- 
money  too ;  their  husbands  buy  'em  everything." 
Mrs.  Tulliver  was  a  mild  woman,  but  even  a  sheep 
will  face  about  a  little  when  she  has  lambs. 


56  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Tchuh  ! "  said  Mr.  Tulliver.  "  It  takes  a  big 
loaf  when  there  's  many  to  breakfast.  What  signi- 
fies your  sisters'  bits  o'  money  when  they  've  got 
half-a-dozen  nevvies  and  nieces  to  divide  it  among  ? 
And  your  sister  Deane  won't  get  'em  to  leave  all  to 
one,  I  reckon,  and  make  the  country  cry  shame  on 
'em  when  they  are  dead  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  what  she  won't  get  'em  to  do," 
said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  for  my  children  are  so  awk- 
'ard  wi'  their  aunts  and  uncles.  Maggie 's  ten  times 
naughtier  when  they  come  than  she  is  other  days, 
and  Tom  does  n  't  like  'em,  bless  him,  —  though  it 's 
more  nat'ral  in  a  boy  than  a  gell.  And  there 's 
Lucy  Deane 's  such  a  good  child,  —  you  may  set  her 
on  a  stool,  and  there  she  11  sit  for  an  hour  together, 
and  never  offer  to  get  off.  I  can't  help  loving  the 
child  as  if  she  was  my  own ;  and  I  'm  sure  she  's 
more  like  my  child  than  sister  Deane's,  for  she  'd 
allays  a  very  poor  colour  for  one  of  our  family,  sister 
Deane  had." 

"  Well,  well,  if  you  're  fond  o'  the  child,  ask  her 
father  and  mother  to  bring  her  with  'em.  And 
won't  you  ask  their  aunt  and  uncle  Moss  too  ?  and 
some  o'  their  children  ? " 

"  Oh  dear,  Mr.  Tulliver,  why,  there  'd  be  eight 
people  besides  the  children,  and  I  must  put  two  more 
leaves  i'  the  table,  besides  reaching  down  more  o' 
the  dinner-service ;  and  you  know  as  well  as  I  do 
as  my  sisters  arid  your  sister  don't  suit  well  together." 

"Well,  well,  do  as  you  like,  Bessy,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver,  taking  up  his  hat  and  walking  out  to  the 
mill.  Few  wives  were  more  submissive  than  Mrs. 
Tulliver  on  all  points  unconnected  with  her  family 
relations ;  but  she  had  been  a  Miss  Dodson,  and  the 
Dodsous  were  a  very  respectable  family  indeed,  — 


BOY   AND  GIRL.  57 

as  much  looked  up  to  as  any  in  their  own  parish, 
or  the  next  to  it.  The  Miss  Dodsons  had  always 
been  thought  to  hold  up  their  heads  very  high,  and 
no  one  was  surprised  the  two  eldest  had  married  so 
well,  —  not  at  an  early  age,  for  that  was  not  the 
practice  of  the  Dodson  family.  There  were  par- 
ticular ways  of  doing  everything  in  that  family, — 
particular  ways  of  bleaching  the  linen,  of  making 
the  cowslip  wine,  curing  the  hams,  and  keeping  the 
bottled  gooseberries ;  so  that  no  daughter  of  that 
house  could  be  indifferent  to  the  privilege  of  having 
been  born  a  Dodson  rather  than  a  Gibson  or  a 
Watson.  Funerals  were  always  conducted  with 
peculiar  propriety  in  the  Dodson  family :  the  hat- 
bands were  never  of  a  blue  shade,  the  gloves  never 
split  at  the  thumb,  everybody  was  a  mourner  who 
ought  to  be,  and  there  were  always  scarfs  for  the 
bearers.  When  one  of  the  family  was  in  trouble  or 
sickness,  all  the  rest  went  to  visit  the  unfortunate 
member,  usually  at  the  same  time,  and  did  not 
shrink  from  uttering  the  most  disagreeable  truths 
that  correct  family  feeling  dictated :  if  the  illness  or 
trouble  was  the  sufferer's  own  fault,  it  was  not  in 
the  practice  of  the  Dodson  family  to  shrink  from 
saying  so.  In  short,  there  was  in  this  family  a 
peculiar  tradition  as  to  what  was  the  right  thing  in 
household  management  and  social  demeanour,  and 
the  only  bitter  circumstance  attending  this  supe- 
riority was  a  painful  inability  to  approve  the  con- 
diments or  the  conduct  of  families  ungoverned  by 
the  Dodson  tradition.  A  female  Dodson,  when  in 
"  strange  houses,"  always  ate  dry  bread  with  her 
tea,  and  declined  any  sort  of  preserves,  having  no 
confidence  in  the  butter,  and  thinking  that  the  pie- 
serves  had  probably  begun  to  ferment  from -want 


58  THE  MILL  ON   THE  FLOSS. 

of  due  sugar  and  boiling.  There  were  some  Dod- 
sons  less  like  tha  family  than  others,  —  that  was 
admitted ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  were  "  kin,"  they 
were  of  necessity  better  than  those  who  were  "no 
kin."  And  it  is  remarkable  that  while  no  indi- 
vidual Dodson  was  satisfied  with  any  other  indivi- 
dual Dodson,  each  was  satisfied  not  only  with  him 
or  her  self,  but  with  the  Dodsons  collectively.  The 
feeblest  member  of  a  family  —  the  one  who  has  the 
least  character  —  is  often  the  merest  epitome  of  the 
family  habits  and  traditions ;  and  Mrs.  Tulliver 
was  a  thorough  Dodson,  though  a  mild  one,  as 
small-beer,  so  long  as  it  is  anything,  is  only  describ- 
able  as  very  weak  ale ;  and  though  she  had  groaned 
a  little  in  her  youth  under  the  yoke  of  her  elder 
sisters,  and  still  shed  occasional  tears  at  their 
sisterly  reproaches,  it  was  not  in  Mrs.  Tulliver  to 
be  an  innovator  on  the  family  ideas.  She  was 
thankful  to  have  been  a  Dodson,  and  to  have  one 
child  who  took  after  her  own  family,  at  least  in  his 
features  and  complexion,  in  liking  salt  and  in  eating 
beans,  which  a  Tulliver  never  did. 

In  other  respects  the  true  Dodson  was  partly  la- 
tent in  Tom,  and  he  was  as  far  from  appreciating  his 
"  kin  "  on  the  mother's  side  as  Maggie  herself ;  gen- 
erally absconding  for  the  day  with  a  large  supply 
of  the  most  portable  food,  when  he  received  timely 
warning  that  his  aunts  and  uncles  were  coming ;  a 
moral  symptom  from  which  his  aunt  Glegg  deduced 
the  gloomiest  views  of  his  future.  It  was  rather  hard 
on  Maggie  that  Tom  always  absconded  without  letting 
her  into  the  secret,  but  the  weaker  sex  are  acknowl- 
edged to  be  serious  impedimenta  in  cases  of  flight. 

On  Wednesday,  the  day  before  the  aunts  and 
uncles  were  coming,  there  were  such  various  and 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  59 

suggestive  scents,  as  of  plumcakes  in  the  oven  and 
jellies  in  the  hot  state,  mingled  with  the  aroma  of 
gravy,  that  it  was  impossible  to  feel  altogether 
gloomy :  there  was  hope  in  the  air.  Torn  and  Mag- 
gie made  several  inroads  into  the  kitchen,  and,  like 
other  marauders,  were  induced  to  keep  aloof  for  a 
time  only  by  being  allowed  to  carry  away  a  suffi- 
cient load  of  booty. 

"  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  as  they  sat  on  the  boughs  of 
the  elder-tree,  eating  their  jam-puffs,  "  shall  you  run 
away  to-morrow  ? " 

"No,"  said  Tom,  slowly,  when  he  had  finished  his 
puff,  and  was  eying^  the  third,  which  was  to  be  di- 
vided between  them,  —  "  no,  I  sha'n't." 

"  Why,  Tom  ?     Because  Lucy  's  coming  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Tom,  opening  his  pocket-knife  and 
holding  it  over  the  puff,  with  his  head  on  one  side  in 
a  dubitative  manner.  (It  was  a  difficult  problem  to 
divide  that  very .  irregular  polygon  into  two  equal 
parts.)  "  What  do  /  care  about  Lucy  ?  She 's  only 
a  girl,  —  she  can't  play  at  bandy." 

"  Is  it  the  tipsy-cake,  then  ? "  said  Maggie,  exert- 
ing her  hypothetic  powers,  while  she  leaned  for- 
ward towards  Tom  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
hovering  knife. 

"  No,  you  silly,  that  '11  be  good  the  day  after.  It 's 
the  pudden.  I  know  what  the  pudden  's  to  be  — 
apricot  roll-up  —  0  my  buttons  ! " 

With  this  interjection,  the  knife  descended  on  the 
puff,  and  it  was  in  two  ;  but  the  result  was  not  satis- 
factory to  Tom,  for  he  still  eyed  the  halves  doubt- 
fully. At  last  he  said,  — 

"  Shut  your  eyes,  Maggie." 

"  What  for  ? " 

"You  never  mind  what  for.  Shut  'em  when  I 
tell  you." 


60  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Maggie  obeyed. 

"  Now,  which  '11  you  have,  Maggie,  —  right  hand 
or  left  ? " 

"  I  '11  have  that  with  the  jam  run  out,"  said  Mag- 
gie, keeping  her  eyes  shut  to  please  Tom. 

"  Why,  you  don't  like  that,  you  silly.  You  may 
have  it  if  it  comes  to  you  fair,  but  I  sha'n't  give  it 
you  without.  Eight  or  left,  —  you  choose,  now. 
Ha-a-a ! "  said  Tom,  in  a  tone  of  exasperation,  as 
Maggie  peeped.  "You  keep  your  eyes  shut,  now, 
else  you  sha'n't  have  any." 

Maggie's  power  of  sacrifice  did  not  extend  so  far ; 
indeed,  I  fear  she  cared  less  that  Tom  should  enjoy 
the  utmost  possible  amount  of  puff  than  that  he 
should  be  pleased  with  her  for  giving  him  the  best 
bit.  So  she  shut  her  eyes  quite  close,  till  Tom  told 
her  to  "  say  which,"  and  then  she  said,  "  Left  hand." 

"  You  've  got  it,"  said  Tom,  in  rather  a  bitter  tone. 

"  What !  the  bit  with  the  jam  run  out  ?  " 

"  No ;  here,  take  it,"  said  Tom,  firmly,  handing 
decidedly  the  best  piece  to  Maggie. 

"  Oh,  please,  Tom,  have  it :  1  don't  mind,  —  I  like 
the  other  ;  please  take  this." 

"  No,  I  sha'n't,"  said  Tom,  almost  crossly,  begin- 
ning on  his  own  inferior  piece. 

Maggie,  thinking  it  was  no  use  to  contend  further, 
began  too,  and  ate  up  her  half  puff  with  consider- 
able relish  as  well  as  rapidity.  But  Tom  had  fin- 
ished first,  and  had  to  look  on  while  Maggie  ate  her 
last  morsel  or  two,  feeling  in  himself  a  capacity  for 
more.  Maggie  did  n't  know  Tom  was  looking  at 
her;  she  was  seesawing  on  the  elder-bough,  lost  to 
almost  everything  but  a  vague  sense  of  jam  and 
idleness. 

"  Oh,   you  greedy  thing ! "  said  Tom,  when  she 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  61 

had  swallowed  the  last  morsel.  He  was  conscious 
of  having  acted  very  fairly,  and  thought  she  ought 
to  have  considered  this,  and  made  up  to  him  for  it. 
He  would  have  refused  a  bit  of  heis  beforehand,  but 
one  is  naturally  at  a  different  point  of  view  before 
and  after  one's  own  share  of  puff  is  swallowed. 

Maggie  turned  quite  pale.  "  Oh,  Tom,  why 
did  n't  you  ask  me  ? " 

"  /  was  n't  going  to  ask  you  for  a  bit,  you  greedy. 
You  might  have  thought  of  it  without,  when  you 
knew  I  gave  you  the  best  bit." 

"  But  I  wanted  you  to  have  it,  —  you  know  I  did," 
said  Maggie,  in  an  injured  tone. 

"  Yes,  but  I  was  n't  going  to  do  what  was  n't  fair, 
like  Spouncer.  He  always  takes  the  best  bit,  if  you 
don't  punch  him  for  it;  and  if  you  choose  the  best 
with  your  eyes  shut,  he  changes  his  hands.  But  if 
I  go  halves,  I  '11  go  'ern  fair,  —  only  I  would  n't  be  a 
greedy." 

With  this  cutting  innuendo,  Tom  jumped  down 
from  his  bough,  and  threw  a  stone  with  a  "  Hoigh  !  " 
as  a  friendly  attention  to  Yap,  who  had  also  been 
looking  on  while  the  eatables  vanished,  with  an  agi- 
tation of  his  ears  and  feelings  which  could  hardly 
have  been  without  bitterness.  Yet  the  excellent 
dog  accepted  Tom's  attention  with  as  much  alacrity 
as  if  he  had  been  treated  quite  generously. 

But  Maggie,  gifted  with  that  superior  power  of 
misery  which  distinguishes  the  human  being,  and 
places  him  at  a  proud  distance  from  the  most  mel- 
ancholy chimpanzee,  sat  still  on  her  bough,  and 
gave  herself  up  to  the  keen  sense  of  unmerited  re- 
proach. She  would  have  given  the  world  not  to 
have  eaten  all  her  puff,  and  to  have  saved  some  of 
it  for  Tom.  'Not  but  that  the  puff  was  very  nice, 


62  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

for  Maggie's  palate  was  not  at  all  obtuse,  but  she 
would  have  gone  without  it  many  times  over,  sooner 
than  Tom  should  call  her  greedy  and  be  cross  with 
her.  And  he  had  said  he  would  n't  have  it,  —  and 
she  ate  it  without  thinking, —  how  could  she  help 
it  ?  The  tears  flowed  so  plentifully  that  Maggie 
saw  nothing  around  her  for  the  next  ten  minutes  ; 
but  by  that  time  resentment  began  to  give  way  to 
the  desire  of  reconciliation,  and  she  jumped  from 
her  bough  to  look  for  Tom.  He  was  no  longer  in 
the  paddock  behind  the  rickyard,  —  where  was  he 
likely  to  be  gone,  and  Yap  with  him  ?  Maggie  ran 
to  the  high  bank  against  the  great  holly-tree,  where 
she  could  see  far  away  towards  the  Floss.  There 
was  Tom ;  but  her  heart  sank  again  as  she  saw  how 
far  off  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  great  river,  and 
that  he  had  another  companion  besides  Yap,  — 
naughty  Bob  Jakin,  whose  official  if  not  natural 
function  of  frightening  the  birds  was  just  now  at  a 
standstill.  Maggie  felt  sure  that  Bob  was  wicked, 
without  very  distinctly  knowing  why ;  unless  it 
was  because  Bob's  mother  was  a  dreadfully  large 
fat  woman,  who  lived  at  a  queer  round  house  down 
the  river;  and  once,  when  Maggie  and  Torn  had 
wandered  thither,  there  rushed  out  a  brindled  dog 
that  would  n't  stop  barking  ;  and  when  Bob's  mother 
came  out  after  it  and  screamed  above  the  barking  to 
tell  them  not  to  be  frightened,  Maggie  thought  she 
was  scolding  them  fiercely,  and  her  heart  beat  with 
terror.  Maggie  thought  it  very  likely  that  the 
round  house  had  snakes  on  the  floor,  and  bats  in 
the  bedroom  ;  for  she  had  s?en  Bob  take  off  his  cap 
to  show  Tom  a  little  snake  that  was  inside  it,  and 
another  time  he  had  a  handful  of  young  bats :  alto- 
gether he  was  an  irregular  character",  perhaps  even 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  63 

slightly  diabolical,  judging  from  his  intimacy  with 
snakes  and  bats ;  and,  to  crown  all,  when  Tom  had 
Bob  for  a  companion,  he  did  n't  mind  about  Maggie, 
and  would  never  let  her  go  with  him. 

It  must  be  owned  that  Tom  was  fond  of  Bob's 
company.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Bob  knew, 
directly  he  saw  a  bird's  egg,  whether  it  was  a  swal- 
low's or  a  tomtit's  or  a  yellow-hammer's  ;  he  found 
out  all  the  wasps'  nests,  and  could  set  all  sorts  of 
traps ;  he  could  climb  the  trees  like  a  squirrel,  and 
had  quite  a  magical  power  of  detecting  hedgehogs 
and  stoats ;  and  he  had  courage  to  do  things  that 
were  rather  naughty,  such  as  making  gaps  in  the 
hedgerows,  throwing  stones  after  the  sheep,  and 
killing  a  cat  that  was  wandering  incognito.  Such 
qualities  in  an  inferior,  who  could  always  be  treated 
with  authority  in  spite  of  his  superior  knowingness, 
had  necessarily  a  fatal  fascination  for  Tom;  and 
every  holiday-time  Maggie  was  sure  to  have  days  of 
grief  because  he  had  gone  off  with  Bob. 

Well !  there  was  no  hope  for  it  •  he  was  gone 
now,  and  Maggie  -could  think  of  no  comfort  but  to 

oo 

sit  down  by  the  hollow,  or  wander  by  the  hedge- 
row, and  fancy  it  was  all  different,  refashioning  her 
little  world  into  just  what  she  should  like  it  to  be. 

Maggie's  was  a  troublous  life,  and  this  was  the 
form  in  which  she  took  her  opium. 

Meanwhile  Tom,  forgetting  all  about  Maggie  and 
the  sting  of  reproach  which  he  had  left  in  her  heart, 
was  hurrying  along  with  Bob,  whom  he  had  met 
accidentally,  to  the  scene  of  a  great  rat-catching  in 
a  neighbouring  barn.  Bob  knew  all  about  this  par- 
ticular affair,  and  spoke  of  the  sport  with  an  enthu- 
siasm which  no  one  who  is  not  either  divested  of  all 
manly  feeling  or  pitiably  ignorant  of  rat-catching, 


64  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

can  fail  to  imagine.  For  a  person  suspected  of 
preternatural  wickedness,  Bob  was  really  not  so 
very  villanous-looking ;  there  was  even  something 
agreeable  in  his  snub-nosed  face,  with  its  close- 
curled  border  of  red  hair.  But  then  his  trousers 
were  •  always  rolled  up  at  the  knee,  for  the  conven- 
ience of  wading  on  the  slightest  notice ;  and  his 
virtue,  supposing  it  to  exist,  was  undeniably  "  virtue 
in  rags,"  which,  on  the  authority  even  of  bilious 
philosophers,  who  think  all  well-dressed  merit  over- 
paid, is  notoriously  likely  to  remain  unrecognized 
(perhaps  because  it  is  seen  so  seldom). 

"  I  know  the  chap  as  owns  the  ferrets,"  said  Bob,  m 
a  hoarse  treble  voice,  as  he  shuffled  along,  keeping  his 
blue  eyes  fixed  on  the  river,  like  an  amphibious  ani- 
mal who  foresaw  occasion  for  darting  in.  "  He  lives 
up  the  Kennel  Yard  at  Sut  Ogg's,  —  he  does.  He's 
the  biggest  rot-catcher  anywhere,  —  he  is.  I  'd  sooner 
be  a  rot-catcher  nor  anything,  —  I  would.  The 
moles  is  nothing  to  the  rots.  But,  Lors !  you  mun 
ha'  ferrets.  Dogs  is  no  good.  Why,  there's  that 
dog,  now ! "  Bob  continued,  pointing  with  an  air  of 
disgust  towards  Yap ;  "  he 's  no  more  good  wi'  a  rot 
nor  nothin'.  I  see  it  myself  —  I  did  —  at  the  rot- 
catchin'  i'  your  feyther's  barn." 

Yap,  feeling  the  withering  influence  of  this  scorn, 
tucked  his  tail  in,  and  shrank  close  to  Tom's  leg, 
who  felt  a  little  hurt  for  him,  but  had  not  the 
superhuman  courage  to  seem  behindhand  with  Bob 
in  contempt  for  a  dog  who  made  so  poor  a  figure. 

"  No,  no,"  he  said,  "  Yap 's  no  good  at  sport.  I  '11 
have  regular  good  dogs  for  rats  and  everything, 
when  I  Ve  done  school." 

"  Hev  ferrets,  Measter  Tom,"  said  Bob  eagerly, — 
*  them  white  ferrets  wi'  pink  eyes.  Lors,  you  might 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  65 

catch  your  own  rots,  an'  you  might  put  a  rot  in  a 
cage  wi'  a  ferret,  an'  see  'em  tight,  —  you  might. 
That 's  what  I  'd  do,  I  know,  an'  it  'ud  be  better 
fun  a'most  nor  seein'  two  chaps  fight,  —  if  it  was  n't 
them  chaps  as  sold  cakes  an'  oranges  at  the  Fair, 
as  the  things  flew  out  o'  their  baskets,  an'  some  o' 
the  cakes  was  smashed.  .  .  .  But  they  tasted  just 
as  good,"  added  Bob,  by  way  of  note  or  addendum, 
after  a  moment's  pausa. 

"  But,  I  say,  Bob,"  said  Tom,  in  a  tone  of  delibera- 
tion, "  ferrets  are  nasty  biting  things,  —  they  '11  bite 
a  fellow  without  being  set  on." 

"  Lors  !  why,  that 's  the  beauty  on  'em.  If  a 
chap  lays  hold  o'-  your  ferret,  he  won't  ba  long  be- 
fore he  hollows  out  a  good  un,  —  he  won't." 

At  this  moment  a  striking  incident  made  the 
boys  pause  suddenly  in  their  walk.  It  was  the 
plunging  of  some  small  body  in  the  water  from 
among  the  neighbouring  bulrushes  :  if  it  was  not 
a  water-rat,  Bob  intimated  that  he  was  ready  to 
undergo  the  most  unpleasant  consequences. 

"  Hoigh  !  Yap  —  hoigh  !  there  he  is,"  said  Tom, 
clapping  his  hands,  as  the  little  black  snout  made 
its  arrowy  course  to  the  opposite  bank.  "  Seize 
him,  lad !  seize  him  ! " 

Yap  agitated  his  ears  and  wrinkled  his  brows, 
but  declined  to  plunge,  trying  whether  barking 
•would  not  answer  the  purpose  just  as  well. 

"  Ugh  !  you  coward  ! "  said  Tom,  and  kicked  him 
over,  feeling  humiliated  as  a  sportsman  to  possess 
so  poor-spirited  an  animal.  Bob  abstained  from 
remark  and  passed  on,  choosing,  however,  to  walk 
in  the  shallow  edge  of  the  overflowing  river  by  way 
of  change. 

"  He  's  none  so  full  now,  the  Floss  is  n't,"  said 

VOL.  I.  — 5 


66  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Bob,  as  he  kicked  the  water  up  before  him,  with  an 
agreeable  sense  of  being  insolent  to  it.  "  Why,  last 
'ear,  the  meadows  was  all  one  sheet  o'  water,  they 
was." 

"  Ay,  but,"  said  Tom,  whose  mind  was  prone  to 
see  an  opposition  between  statements  that  were 
really  quite  accordant,  —  "  but  there  was  a  big  flood 
once,  when  the  Round  Pool  was  made.  1  know 
there  was,  'cause  father  says  so.  And  the  sheep 
and  cows  were  all  drowned,  and  the  boats  went  all 
over  the  fields  ever  such  a  way." 

"  /  don't  care  about  a  flood  comin',"  said  Bob ;  "  I 
don't  mind  the  water,  no  more  nor  the  land.  I  'd 
swim,  —  I  would." 

"Ah,  but  if  you  got  nothing  to  eat  for  ever  so 
long  ? "  said  Tom,  his  imagination  becoming  quite 
active  under  the  stimulus  of  that  dread.  "  When 
I  'm  a  man,  I  shall  make  a  boat  with  a  wooden 
house  on  the  top  of  it,  like  Noah's  ark,  and  keep 
plenty  to  eat  in  it  —  rabbits  and  things  —  all  ready. 
And  then  if  the  flood  came,  you  know,  Bob,  I 
should  n't  mind.  .  .  .  And  I  'd  take  you  in,  if  I 
saw  you  swimming,"  he  added,  in  the  tone  of  a 
benevolent  patron. 

"  I  are  n't  frighted,"  said  Bob,  to  whom  hunger  did 
not  appear  so  appalling.  "  But  I  'd  get  in  an'  knock 
the  rabbits  on  th'  head  when  you  wanted  to  eat 'em." 

"  Ah,  and  I  should  have  halfpence,  and  we  'd  play 
at  heads-and-tails,"  said  Tom,  not  contemplating  the 
possibility  that  this  recreation  might  have  fewer 
charms  for  his  mature  age.  "  I  'd  divide  fair  to 
begin  with,  and  then  we  'd  see  who  'd  win." 

"  I  've  got  a  halfpenny  o'  my  own,"  said  Bob, 
proudly,  coming  out  of  the  water  and  tossinj?  his 
halfpenny  in  the  air.  "  Yeads  or  tails  ? " 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  07 

"  Tails,"  said  Tom,  instantly  fired  with  the  desire 
to  win. 

"  It 's  yeads,"  said  Bob,  hastily,  snatching  up  the 
halfpenny  as  it  fell. 

"  It  was  n't,"  said  Tom,  loudly  and  peremptorily. 
"  You  give  me  the  halfpenny,  —  I  Ve  won  it  fair." 

"  I  sha'n't,"  said  Bob,  holding  it  tight  in  his  pocket. 

"Then  I  '11  make  you,  —  see  if  I  don't,"  said  Tom. 

"  You  can't  make  me  do  nothing,  you  can't,"  said 
Bob. 

"  Yes,  I  can." 

"  No,  you  can't." 

"  I  'm  master." 

"  I  don't  care  for  you." 

"But  I'll  make  you  care,  you  cheat!"  said  Tom, 
collaring  Bob,  and  shaking  him. 

"  You  get  out  wi'  you,"  said  Bob,  giving  Tom  a 
kick. 

Tom's  blood  was  thoroughly  up :  he  went  at  Bob 
with  a  lunge,  and  threw  him  down ;  but  Bob  seized 
hold  and  kept  it  like  a  cat,  and  pulled  Tom  down 
after  him.  They  struggled  fiercely  on  the  ground 
for  a  moment  or  two,  till  Tom,  pinning  Bob  down 
by  the  shoulders,  thought  he  had  the  mastery. 

"  You  say  you  '11  give  me  the  halfpenny  now,"  he 
said,  with  difficulty,  while  he  exerted  himself  to 
keep  the  command  of  Bob's  arms. 

But  at  this  moment  Yap,  who  had  been  running 
on  before,  returned  barking  to  the  scene  of  action, 
and  saw  a  favourable  opportunity  for  biting  Bob's 
bare  leg  not  only  with  impunity  but  with  honour. 
The  pain  from  Yap's  teeth,  instead  of  surprising 
Bob  into  a  relaxation  of  his  hold,  gave  it  a  fiercer 
tenacity,  and  with  a  new  exertion  of  his  force,  he 
pushed  Tom  backward  and  got  uppermost.  But 


68  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

now  Yap,  who  could  get  no  sufficient  purchase 
before,  set  his  teeth  in  a  new  place,  so  that  Bob, 
harassed  in  this  way,  let  go  his  hold  of  Tom,  and, 
almost  throttling  Yap,  flung  him  into  the  river. 
By  this  time  Tom  was  up  again,  and  before  Bob 
had  quite  recovered  his  balance  after  the  act  of 
swinging  Yap,  Tom  fell  upon  him,  threw  him 
down,  and  got  his  knees  firmly  on  Bob's  chest. 

"  You  give  me  the  halfpenny  now,"  said  Tom. 

"  Take  it,"  said  Bob,  sulkily. 

"No,  I  sha'n't  take  it;  you  give  it  me." 

Bob  took  the  halfpenny  out  of  his  pocket,  and 
threw  it  away  from  him  on  the  ground. 

Tom  loosed  his  hold,  and  left  Bob  to  rise. 

"There  the  halfpenny  lies,"  he  said.  "I  don't 
want  your  halfpenny;  I  wouldn't  have  kept  it. 
But  you  wanted  to  cheat :  I  hate  a  cheat.  I  sha'n't 
go  along  with  you  any  more,"  he  added,  turning 
round  homeward,  not  without  casting  a  regret 
towards  the  rat-catching  and  other  pleasures  which 
he  must  relinquish  along  with  Bob's  society. 

"  You  may  let  it  alone,  then,"  Bob  called  out  after 
him.  "  I  shall  cheat  if  I  like ;  there 's  no  fun  i' 
playing  else ;  and  I  know  where  there  's  a  gold- 
finch's nest,  but  I  '11  take  care  you  don't.  .  .  .  An' 
you  're  a  nasty  fightin'  turkey-cock,  you  are  —  " 

Tom  walked  on  without  looking  round ;  and  Yap 
followed  his  example,  the  cold  bath  having  mod- 
erated his  passions. 

"  Go  along  wi'  you,  then,  wi'  your  drowned  dog ; 
I  wouldn't  own  such  a  dog,  —  I  wouldn't,"  said 
Bob,  getting  louder,  in  a  last  effort  to  sustain  his 
defiance.  But  Tom  was  not  to  be  provoked  into 
turning  round,  and  Bob's  voice  began  to  falter  a 
little  as  he  said, — 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  69 

"An'  I'n  gi'en  you  everything,  an'  showed  you 
everything,  an'  niver  wanted  nothiii'  from  you.  .  .  . 
An'  there  's  your  horn-handed  knife,  then,  as  you 
gi'en  me  — "  Here  Bob  flung  the  knife  as  far  as 
he  could  after  Tom's  retreating  footsteps.  But  it 
produced  no  effect,  except  the  sense  in  Bob's  mind 
that  there  was  a  terrible  void  in  his  lot,  now  that 
knife  was  gone. 

He  stood  still  till  Tom  had  passed  through  the 
gate  and  disappeared  behind  the  hedge.  The  knife 
would  do  no  good  on  the  ground  there,  —  it  would  n't 
vex  Tom,  and  pride  or  resentment  was  a  feeble 
passion  in  Bob's  .mind  compared  with  the  love  of 
a  pocket-knife.  His  very  fingers  sent  entreating 
thrills  that  he  would  go  and  clutch  that  familiar 
rough  buck's-horn  handle,  which  they  had  so  often 
grasped  for  mere  affection,  as  it  lay  idle  in  his 
pocket.  And  there  were  two  blades,  and  they  had 
just  been  sharpened !  What  is  life  without  a 
pocket-knife  to  him  who  has  once  tasted  a  higher 
existence  ?  No :  to  throw  the  handle  after  the 
hatchet  is  a  comprehensible  act  of  desperation, 
but  to  throw  one's  pocket-knife  after  an  implacable 
friend  is  clearly  in  every  sense  a  hyperbole,  or 
throwing  beyond  the  mark.  So  Bob  shuffled  back 
to  the  spot  where  the  beloved  knife  lay  in  the  dirt, 
and  felt  quite  a  new  pleasure  in  clutching  it  again 
after  the  temporary  separation,  in  opening  one 
blade  after  the  other,  and  feeling  their  edge  with 
his  well-hardened  thumb.  Poor  Bob !  he  was  not 
sensitive  on  the  point  of  honour,  —  not  a  chivalrous 
character.  That  fine  moral  aroma  would  not  have 
been  thought  much  of  by  the  public  opinion  of 
Kennel  Yard,  which  was  the  very  focus  or  heart 
of  Bob's  world,  even  if  it  could  have  made  itself 


70  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

perceptible  there ;  yet,  for  all  that,  he  was  not 
utterly  a  sneak  and  a  thief  as  our  friend  Tom  had 
hastily  decided. 

But  Tom,  you  perceive,  was  rather  a  Bhadaman- 
thine  personage,  having  more  than  the  usual  share 
of  boy's  justice  in  him,  —  the  justice  that  desires  to 
hurt  culprits  as  much  as  they  deserve  to  be  hurt, 
and  is  troubled  with  no  doubts  concerning  the 
exact  amount  of  their  deserts.  Maggie  saw  a  cloud 
on  his  brow  when  he  came  home,  which  checked 
her  joy  at  his  coming  so  much  sooner  than  she  had 
expected,  and  she  dared  hardly  speak  to  him  as  he 
stood  silently  throwing  the  small  gravel-stones  into 
the  mill-dam.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  give  up  a  rat- 
catching  when  you  have  set  your  mind  on  it.  But 
if  Tom  had  told  his  strongest  feeling  at  that  mo- 
ment, he  would  have  said,  "  I  'd  do  just  the  same 
again."  That  was  his  usual  mode  of  viewing  his 
past  actions ;  whereas  Maggie  was  always  wishing 
she  had  done  something  different 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ENTER  THE  AUNTS  AND  UNCLES. 

THE  Dodsons  were  certainly  a  handsome  family, 
and  Mrs.  Glegg  was  not  the  least  handsome  of 
the  sisters.  As  she  sat  in  Mrs.  Tulliver's  arm- 
chair, no  impartial  observer  could  have  denied 
that  for  a  woman  of  fifty  she  had  a  very  comely 
face  and  figure,  though  Tom  and  Maggie  considered 
their  aunt  Glegg  as  the  type  of  ugliness.  It  is 
true  she  despised  the  advantages  of  costume;  for 
though,  as  she  often  observed,  no  woman  had  better 
clothes,  it  was  not  her  way  to  wear  her  new  things 
out  before  her  old  ones.  Other  women,  if  they 
liked,  might  have  their  best  thread-lace  in  every 
wash ;  but  when  Mis.  Glegg  died,  it  would  be 
found  that  she  had  better  lace  laid  by  in  the 
right-hand  drawer  of  her  wardrobe,  in  the  Spotted 
Chamber,  than  ever  Mrs.  Wooll  of  St.  Ogg's  had 
bought  in  her  life,  although  Mrs.  Wooll  wore  her 
lace  before  it  was  paid  for.  So  of  her  curled 
fronts :  Mrs.  Glegg  had  doubtless  the  glossiest  and 
crispest  brown  curls  in  her  drawers,  as  well  as  curls 
in  various  degrees  of  fuzzy  laxness ;  but  to  look 
out  on  the  week-day  world  from  under  a  crisp  and 
glossy  front  would  be  to  introduce  a  most  dream- 
like and  unpleasant  confusion  between  the  sacred 
and  the  secular.  Occasionally,  indeed,  Mrs.  Glegg 
wore  one  of  her  third-best  fronts  on  a  week-day 
visit,  but  not  at  a  sister's  bouse  ;  especially  not  at 


72  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Mrs.  Tulliver's,  who,  since  her  marriage,  had  hurt 
her  sisters'  feelings  greatly  by  wearing  her  own  hair, 
though,  as  Mrs.  Glegg  observed  to  Mrs.  Deane,  a 
mother  of  a  family,  like  Bessy,  with  a  husband 
always  going  to  law,  might  have  been  expected  to 
know  better.  But  Bessy  was  always  weak ! 

So  if  Mrs.  Glegg's  front  to-day  was  more  fuzzy 
and  lax  than  usual,  she  had  a  design  under  it :  she 
intended  the  most  pointed  and  cutting  allusion  to 
Mrs.  Tulliver's  bunches  of  blond  curls,  separated 
from  each  other  by  a  due  wave  of  smoothness  on 
each  side  of  the  parting.  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  shed 
tears  several  times  at  sister  Glegg's  unkindness  on 
the  subject  of  these  unmatronly  curls,  but  the  con- 
sciousness of  looking  the  handsomer  for  them 
naturally  administered  support.  Mrs.  Glegg  chose 
to  wear  her  bonnet  in  the  house  to-day,  —  untied 
and  tilted  slightly,  of  course,  —  a  frequent  practice 
of  hers  when  she  was  on  a  visit,  and  happened  to  be 
in  a  severe  humour ;  she  did  n't  know  what  draughts 
there  might  be  in  strange  houses.  For  the  same 
reason  she  wore  a  small  sable  tippet,  which  reached 
just  to  her  shoulders  and  was  very  far  from  meeting 
across  her  well-formed  chest,  while  her  long  neck 
was  protected  by  a  chevaux-de-frise  of  miscellane- 
ous frilling.  One  would  need  to  be  learned  in  the 
fashions  of  those  times  to  know  how  far  in  the  rear 
of  them  Mrs.  Glegg's  slate-coloured  silk  gown  must 
have  been  ;  but  from  certain  constellations  of  small 
yellow  spots  upon  it,  and  a  mouldy  odour  about  it 
suggestive  of  a  damp  clothes-chest,  it  was  probable 
that  it  belonged  to  a  stratum  of  garments  just  old 
enough  to  have  come  recently  into  wear. 

Mrs.  Glegg  held  her  large  gold  watch  in  her  hand 
with  the  many-doubled  chain  round  her  lingers,  and 


BOY  AND   GIRL.  73 

observed  to  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  had  just  returned 
from  a  visit  to  the  kitchen,  that  whatever  it  might 
be  by  other  people's  clocks  and  watches,  it  was 
gone  half-past  twelve  by  hers. 

"  I  don't  know  what  ails  sister  Pullet,"  she  con- 
tinued. "  It  used  to  be  the  way  in  our  family  for 
one  to  be  as  early  as  another,  —  I  'm  sure  it  was  so 
in  my  poor  father's  time,  —  and  not  for  one  sister 
to  sit  half  an  hour  before  the  others  came.  But  if 
the  ways  o'  the  family  are  altered,  it  sha'n't  be  my 
fault,  —  I'll  never  be  the  one  to  come  into  a  house 
when  all  the  rest  are  going  away.  I  wonder  at 
sister  Dsane,  —  she  used  to  le  more  like  me.  But 
if  you  '11  take  my  advice,  Bessy,  you  '11  put  the 
dinner  forrard  a  bit,  sooner  than  put  it  back, 
because  folks  are  late  as  ought  to  ha'  known 
better." 

"  Oh  dear,  there 's  no  fear  but  what  they  '11  be  all 
here  in  time,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  in  her  mild- 
peevish  tone.  "  The  dinner  won't  be  ready  till  half- 
past  one.  But  if  it's  long  for  you  to  wait,  let  me 
fetch  you  a  cheesecake  and  a  glass  o'  wine." 

"  Well,  Bessy  ! "  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  with  a  bitter 
smile,  and  a  scarcely  perceptible  toss  of  her  head, 
"  I  should  ha'  thought  you  'd  known  your  own  sister 
better.  I  never  did  eat  between  meals,  and  I'm 
not  going  to  begin.  Not  but  what  I  hate  that  non- 
sense of  having  your  dinner  at  half-past  one,  when 
you  might  have  it  at  one.  You  was  never  brought 
up  in  that  way,  Bessy." 

"  Why,  Jane,  what  can  I  do  ?  Mr.  Tulliver 
does  n't  like  his  dinner  before  two  o'clock,  but  I  put 
it  half  an  hour  earlier  because  o'  you." 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  how  it  is  with  husbands, — • 
they  're  for  putting  everything  off,  —  they  '11  put  the 


74  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

dinner  off  till  after  tea,  if  they've  got  wives  as  are 
weak  enough  to.  give  in  to  such  work ;  but  it 's 
a  pity  for  you,  Bessy,  as  you  have  n't  got  more 
strength  o'  mind.  It'll  be  well  if  your  children 
don't  suffer  for  it.  And  I  hope  you  've  not  gone 
and  got  a  great  dinner  for  us,  — going  to  expense  for 
your  sisters,  as  'ud  sooner  eat  a  crust  o'  dry  bread 
nor  help  to  ruin  you  with  extravagance.  I  wonder 
you  don't  take  pattern  by  your  sister  Deane,  —  she 's 
far  more  sensible.  And  here  you  've  got  two  chil- 
dren to  provide  for,  and  your  husband 's  spent  your 
fortin  i'  going  to  law,  and's  likely  to  spend  his  own 
too.  A  boiled  joint,  as  you  could  make  broth  of 
for  the  kitchen,"  Mrs.  Glegg  addsd,  in  a  tone  of 
emphatic  protest,  "and  a  plain  pudding,  with  a 
spoonful  o'  sugar,  and  no  spice,  'ud  be  far  more 
becoming." 

With  sister  Glegg  in  this  humour,  there  was  a 
cheerful  prospect  for  the  day.  Mrs.  Tulliver  never 
went  the  langth  of  quarrelling  with  her,  any  more 
than  a  water-fowl  that  puts  out  its  leg  in  a  depre- 
cating manner  can  be  said  to  quarrel  with  a  boy  who 
throws  stones.  But  this  point  of  the  dinner  was  a 
tender  one,  and  not  at  all  new,  so  that  Mrs.  Tulliver 
could  make  the  same  answer  she  had  often  made 
before. 

"Mr.  Tulliver  says  he  always  will  have  a  good 
dinner  for  his  friends  while  he  can  pay  for  it,"  she 
said ;  "  and  he 's  a  right  to  do  as  he  likes  in  his  own 
house,  sister." 

"  Well,  Bessy,  I  can't  leave  your  children  enough 
out  o'  my  savings  to  keep  'em  from  ruin.  And  you 
must  n't  look  to  having  any  o'  Mr.  Glegg's  money, 
for  it 's  well  if  I  don't  go  first,  —  he  comes  of  a  long- 
lived  family  ;  and  if  ha  was  to  die  and  leave  me 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  75 

well  for  my  life,  he  'd  tie  all  the  money  up  to  go 
back  to  his  own  kin." 

The  sound  of  wheels  while  Mrs.  Glegg  was  speak- 
ing was  an  interruption  highly  welcome  to  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  who  hastened  out  to  receive  sister  Pullet, 
—  it  must  be  sister  Pullet,  because  the  sound  was 
that  of  a  four-wheel. 

Mrs.  Glegg  tossed  her  head  and  looked  rather 
sour  about  the  mouth  at  the  thought  of  the  "  four- 
wheel."  She  had  a  strong  opinion  on  that  subject. 

Sister  Pullet  was  in  tears  when  the  one-horse 
chaise  stopped  before  Mrs.  Tulliver's  door,  and  it 
was  apparently  requisite  that  she  should  shed  a  few 
more  before  getting  out ;  for  though  her  husband 
and  Mrs.  Tulliver  stood  ready  to  support  her,  she 
sat  still  and  shook  her  head  sadly,  as  she  looked 
through  her  tears  at  the  vague  distance. 

"  Why,  whativer  is  the  matter,  sister  ? "  said  Mrs. 
Tulliver.  She  was  not  an  imaginative  woman,  but 
it  occurred  to  her  that  the  large  toilet-glass  in 
sister  Pullet's  best  bedroom  was  possibly  broken  for 
the  second  time. 

There  was  no  reply  but  a  further  shake  of  the 
head,  as  Mrs.  Pullet  slowly  rose  and  got  down  from 
the  chaise,  not  without  casting  a  glance  at  Mr. 
Pullet  to  see  that  he  was  guarding  her  handsome 
silk  dress  from  injury.  Mr.  Pullet  was  a  small 
man  with  a  high  nose,  small  twinkling  eyes,  and 
thin  lips,  in  a  fresh-looking  suit  of  black  and  a 
white  cravat,  that  seemed  to  have  been  tied  very 
tight  on  some  higher  principle  than  that  of  mere 
personal  ease.  He  bore  about  the  same  relation  to 
his  tall,  good-looking  wife,  with  her  balloon  sleeves, 
abundant  mantle,  and  large  befeathered  and  be- 
ribboned  bonnet,  as  a  small  fishing-smack  bears  to  a 
brig  with  all  its  sails  spread. 


76  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

It  is  a  pathetic  sight  and  a  striking  example  of 
the  complexity  introduced  into  the  emotions  by  a 
high  state  of  civilization,  —  the  sight  of  a  fashionably 
dressed  female  in  grief.  From  the  sorrow  of  a  Hotten- 
tot to  that  of  a  woman  in  large  buckram  sleeves, 
with  several  bracelets  on  each  arm,  an  architectural 
bonnet,  and  delicate  ribbon-strings,  —  what  a  long 
series  of  gradations !  In  the  enlightened  child  of 
civilization  the  abandonment  characteristic  of  grief 
is  checked  and  varied  in  the  subtlest  manner,  so  as 
to  present  an  interesting  problem  to  the  analytic 
mind.  If,  with  a  crushed  heart  and  eyes  half 
blinded  by  the  mist  of  tears,  she  were  to  walk  with 
a  too  devious  step  through  a  door-place,  she  might 
crush  her  buckram  sleeves  too,  and  the  deep  con- 
sciousness of  this  possibility  produces  a  composition 
of  forces  by  which  she  takes  a  line  that  just  clears 
the  doorpost.  Perceiving  that  the  tears  are  hurry- 
ing fast,  she  unpins  her  strings  and  throws  them 
languidly  backward, —  a  touching  gesture,  indica- 
tive, even  in  the  deepest  gloom,  of  the  hope  in 
future  dry  moments  when  cap-strings  will  once 
more  have  a  charm.  As  the  tears  subside  a  little, 
and  with  her  head  leaning  backward  at  the  angle 
that  will  not  injure  her  bonnet,  she  endures  that 
terrible  moment  when  grief,  which  has  made  all 
things  else  a  weariness,  has  itself  become  weary ; 
she  looks  down  pensively  at  her  bracelets,  and 
adjusts  their  clasps  with  that  pretty  studied  fortuity 
which  would  be  gratifying  to  her  mind  if  it  were 
once  more  in  a  calm  and  healthy  state. 

Mrs.  Pullet  brushed  each  doorpost  with  great  nicety 
about  the  latitude  of  her  shoulders  (at  that  period 
a  woman  was  truly  ridiculous  to  an  instructed  eye 
if  she  did  not  measure  a  yard  and  a  half  across  the 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  77 

shoulders),  and  having  done  that,  sent  the  muscles 
of  her  face  in  quest  of  fresh  tears  as  she  advanced 
into  the  parlour  where  Mrs.  Glegg  was  seated. 

"  Well,  sister,  you  're  late  ;  what 's  the  matter  ?  " 
said  Mrs.  Glegg,  rather  sharply,  as  they  shook 
hands. 

Mrs.  Pullet  sat  down,  lifting  up  her  mantle  care- 
fully behind,  before  she  answered, — 

"  She  's  gone,"  unconsciously  using  an  impressive 
figure  of  rhetoric. 

"  It  is  n't  the  glass  this  time,  then,"  thought  Mrs. 
Tulliver. 

"  Died  the  day  before  yesterday,"  continued  Mrs. 
Pullet ;  "  an'  her  legs  was  as  thick  as  my  body,"  she 
added,  with  deep  sadness,  after  a  pause.  "  They  'd 
tapped  her  no  end  o'  times,  and  the  water  —  they 
say  you  might  ha'  swum  in  it,  if  you  'd  liked." 

"  Well,  Sophy,  it 's  a  mercy  she 's  gone,  then, 
whoever  she  may  be,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  with  the 
promptitude  and  emphasis  of  a  mind  naturally 
clear  and  decided ;  "  but  I  can't  think  who  you  're 
talking  of,  for  my  part." 

"  But  /  know,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  sighing  and  shak- 
ing her  head ;  "  and  there  is  n't  another  such  a 
dropsy  in  the  parish.  /  know  as  it 's  old  Mrs. 
Sutton  o'  the  Twentylands." 

"  Well,  she 's  no  kin  o'  yours,  nor  much  acquaint- 
ance as  I  've  ever  heared  of,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  who 
always  cried  just  as  much  as  was  proper  when  any- 
thing happened  to  her  own  "  kin,"  but  not  on  other 
occasions. 

"  She 's  so  much  acquaintance  as  I  Ve  seen  her 
legs  when  they  was  like  bladders.  .  .  .  And  an  old 
lady  as  had  doubled  her  money  over  and  over  again, 
and  kept  it  all  in  her  own  management  to  the  last, 


78  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  had  her  pocket  with  her  keys  in  under  her 
pillow  constant.  There  is  n't  many  old  ^arish'nera 
like  her,  I  doubt." 

"  And  they  say  she  'd  took  as  much  physic  as  'ud 
fill  a  wagon,"  observed  Mr.  Pullet. 

"  Ah  !  "  sighed  Mrs.  Pullet,  "  she  'd  another  com- 
plaint ever  so  many  years  before  she  had  the  dropsy, 
and  the  doctors  couldn't  make  out  what  it  was. 
And  she  said  to  me,  when  I  went  to  see  her  last 
Christmas,  she  said,  '  Mrs.  Pullet,  if  ever  you  have 
the  dropsy,  you  11  think  o'  me.'  She  did  say  so," 
added  Mrs.  Pullet,  beginning  to  cry  bitterly  again ; 
"  those  were  her  very  words.  And  she 's  to  be 
buried  o'  Saturday,  and  Pullet 's  bid  to  the  funeral." 

"Sophy,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  unable  any  longer 
to  contain  her  spirit  of  rational  remonstrance,  — • 
"  Sophy,  I  wonder  at  you,  fretting  and  injuring 
your  health  about  people  as  don't  belong  to  you. 
Your  poor  father  never  did  so,  nor  your  aunt  Frances 
neither,  nor  any  o'  the  family  as  I  ever  heared  of. 
You  could  n't  fret  no  more  than  this,  if  we  'd  heared 
as  our  cousin  Abbott  had  died  sudden  without 
making  his  will." 

Mrs.  Pullet  was  silent,  having  to  finish  her  cry- 
ing, and  rather  flattered  than  indignant  at  being 
upbraided  for  crying  too  much.  It  was  not  every- 
body who  could  afford  to  cry  so  much  about  their 
neighbours  who  had  left  them  nothing;  but  Mrs. 
Pullet  had  married  a  gentleman  farmer,  and  had 
leisure  and  money  to  carry  her  crying  and  every- 
thing else  to  the  highest  pitch  of  respectability. 

"  Mrs.  Sutton  did  n't  die  without  making  her  will, 
though,"  said  Mr.  Pullet,  with  a  confused  sense  that 
he  was  saying  something  to  sanction  his  wife's  tears; 
"  ours  is  a  rich  parish,  but  they  say  there  's  nobody 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  79 

else  to  leave  as  many  thousands  behind  'era  as  Mrs. 
Sutton.  And  she  's  left  no  leggicies,  to  speak  on,  — 
left  it  all  in  a  lump  to  her  husband's  nevvy." 

"  There  was  n't  much  good  i'  being  so  rich,  then," 
said  Mrs.  Glegg,  "  if  she  'd  got  none  but  husband's  kin 
to  leave  it  to.  It 's  poor  work  when  that 's  all  you  've 
got  to  pinch  yourself  for ;  —  not  as  I  'm  one  o'  those 
as  'ud  like  to  die  without  leaving  more  money  out  at 
interest  than  other  folks  had  reckoned.  But  it 's  a 
poor  tale  when  it  must  go  out  o'  your  own  family." 

"  I  'm  sure,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  who  had 
recovered  sufficiently  to  take  off  her  veil  and  fold  it 
carefully,  "  it 's  a  nice  sort  o'  man  as  Mrs.  Sutton 
has  left  her  money  to,  for  he  's  troubled  with  the 
asthmy,  and  goes  to  bed  every  night  at  eight  o'clock. 
He  told  me  about  it  himself  —  as  free  as  could  be 
—  one  Sunday  when  he  came  to  our  church.  He 
wears  a  hare-skin  on  his  chest,  and  has  a  trembling 
in  his  talk,  —  quite  a  gentleman  sort  o'  man.  I  told 
him  there  was  n't  many  months  in  the  year  as  I 
was  n't  under  the  doctor's  hands.  And  he  said, 
'  Mrs.  Pullet,  I  can  feel  for  you.'  That  was  what  he 
said,  —  the  very  words.  Ah  !  "  sighed  Mrs.  Pullet, 
shaking  her  head  at  the  idea  that  there  were  but 
few  who  could  enter  fully  into  her  experiences  in 
pink  mixture  and  white  mixture,  strong  stuff  in 
small  bottles,  and  weak  stuff  in  large  bottles,  damp 
boluses  at  a  shilling,  and  draughts  at  eighteenpence. 
"  Sister,  I  may  as  well  go  and  take  my  bonnet  off 
now.  Did  you  see  as  the  cap-box  was  put  out?" 
she  added,  turning  to  her  husband. 

Mr.  Pullet,  by  an  unaccountable  lapse  of  memory, 
had  forgotten  it,  and  hastened  out,  with  a  stricken 
conscience,  to  remedy  the  omission. 

"  They  '11   bring   it    upstairs,    sister,"   said    Mrs. 


8o  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Tulliver,  wishing  to  go  at  once,  lest  Mrs.  Glegg 
should  begin  to  explain  her  feelings  about  Sophy's 
being  the  first  Dodson  who  ever  ruined  her  consti- 
tution with  doctor's  stuff. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  fond  of  going  upstairs  with 
her  sister  Pullet,  and  looking  thoroughly  at  her  cap 
before  she  put  it  on  her  head,  and  discussing 
millinery  in  general.  This  was  part  of  Bessy's 
weakness,  that  stirred  Mrs.  Glegg's  sisterly  com- 
passion :  Bessy  went  far  too  well  dressed,  considering  ; 
and  she  was  too  proud  to  dress  her  child  in  the 
good  clothing  her  sister  Glegg  gave  her  from  the 
primeval  strata  of  her  wardrobe ;  it  was  a  sin  and 
a  shame  to  buy  anything  to  dress  that  child,  if  it 
was  n't  a  pair  of  shoas.  In  this  particular,  however, 
Mrs.  Glegg  did  her  sister  Bessy  some  injustice,  for 
Mrs.  Tulliver  had  really  made  great  efforts  to  induce 
Maggie  to  wear  a  leghorn  bonnet  and  a  dyed  silk 
frock  made  out  of  her  aunt  Glegg's,  but  the  results 
had  been  such  that  Mrs.  Tulliver  was  obliged  to 
bury  them  in  her  maternal  bosom ;  for  Maggie, 
declaring  that  the  frock  smelt  of  nasty  dye,  had 
taken  an  opportunity  of  basting  it  together  with  the 
roast-beef  the  first  Sunday  she  wore  it,  and,  finding 
this  scheme  answer,  she  had  subsequently  pumped 
on  the  bonnet  with  its  green  ribbons,  so  as  to  give 
it  a  general  resemblance  to  a  sage  cheese  garnished 
with  withered  lettuces.  I  must  urge  in  excuse  for 
Maggie,  that  Tom  had  laughed  at  her  in  the  bonnet, 
and  said  she  looked  like  an  old  Judy.  Aunt  Pullet, 
too,  made  presents  of  clothes,  but  these  were  always 
pretty  enough  to  please  Maggie  as  well  as  her 
mother.  Of  all  her  sisters,  Mrs.  Tulliver  certainly 
preferred  her  sister  Pullet,  not  without  a  return  o* 
preference ;  but  Mrs.  Pullet  was  sorry  B^ssy  had 


BOY  AND   GIRL.  81 

those  naughty  awkward  children ;  she  would  do  the 
best  she  could  by  them,  but  it  was  a  pity  they 
were  n't  as  good  and  as  pretty  as  sister  Deane's 
child.  Maggie  and  Tom,  on  their  part,  thought 
their  aunt  Pullet  tolerable,  chietiy  because  she  was 
not  their  aunt  Glegg.  Tom  always  declined  to  go 
more  than  once,  during  his  holidays,  to  see  either 
of  them :  both  his  uncles  tipped  him  that  once,  of 
course ;  but  at  his  aunt  Pullet's  there  were  a  great 
many  toads  to  pelt  in  the  cellar-area,  so  that  he 
preferred  the  visit  to  her.  Maggie  shuddered  at  the 
toads,  and  dreamed  of  them  horribly,  but  she  liked 
her  uncle  Pullet's,  musical  snuffbox.  Still,  it  was 
agreed  by  the  sisters,  in  Mrs.  Tulliver's  absence, 
that  the  Tulliver  blood  did  not  mix  well  with  the 
Dodson  blood ;  that,  in  fact,  poor  Bessy's  children 
were  Tullivers,  and  that  Tom,  notwithstanding  he 
had  the  Dodson  complexion,  was  likely  to  be  as 
"  contrairy  "  as  his  father.  As  for  Maggie,  she  was 
the  picture  of  her  aunt  Moss,  Mr.  Tulliver's  sister, 
—  a  large-boned  woman,  who  had  married  as  poorly 
as  could  be,  had  no  china,  and  had  a  husband  who 
had  much  ado  to  pay  his  rent.  But  when  Mrs. 
Pullet  was  alone  with  Mrs.  Tulliver  upstairs,  the 
remarks  were  naturally  to  the  disadvantage  of  Mrs. 
Glegg,  and  they  agreed,  in  confidence,  that  there 
was  no  knowing  what  sort  of  fright  sister  Jane 
would  come  out  next.  But  their  tete-a-tete  was  cur- 
tailed by  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Deane  with  little 
Lucy ;  and  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  to  look  on  with  a 
silent  pang  while  Lucy's  blond  curls  were  adjusted. 
It  was  quite  unaccountable  that  Mrs.  Deane,  the 
thinnest  and  sallowest  of  all  the  Miss  Dodsons, 
should  have  had  this  child,  who  might  have  been 
taken  for  Mrs.  Tulliver's  any  day.  And  Maggie 

VOL.    I. 6 


82  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

always  looked  twice  as  dark  as  usual  when  she  was 
by  the  side  of  Lucy. 

She  did  to-day,  when  «he  and  Tom  came  in  from 
the  garden  with  their  father  and  their  uncle  Glegg. 
Maggie  had  thrown  her  bonnet  off  very  carelessly, 
and,  coining  in  with  her  hair  rough  as  well  as  out 
of  curl,  rushed  at  once  to  Lucy,  who  was  standing 
by  her  mother's  knee.  Certainly  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  cousins  was  conspicuous,  and,  to  super- 
ficial eyes,  was  very  much  to  the  disadvantage  of 
Maggie,  though  a  connoisseur  might  have  seen 
"points"  in  her  which  had  a  higher  promise  for 
maturity  than  Lucy's  natty  completeness.  It  was 
like  the  contrast  between  a  rough,  dark,  overgrown 
puppy  and  a  white  kitten.  Lucy  put  up  the  neatest 
little  rosebud  mouth  to  be  kissed :  everything  about 
her  was  neat  —  her  little  round  neck,  with  the  row 
of  coral  beads  ;  her  little  straight  nose,  not  at  all 
snubby ;  her  little  clear  eyebrows,  rather  darker 
than  her  curls,  to  match  her  hazel  eyes,  which 
looked  up  with  shy  pleasure  at  Maggie,  taller  by 
the  head,  though  scarcely  a  year  older.  Maggie 
always  looked  at  Lucy  with  delight.  She  was  fond 
of  fancying  a  world  where  the  people  never  got  any 
larger  than  children  of  their  own  age,  and  she  made 
the  queen  of  it  just  like  Lucy,  with  a  little  crown 
on  her  head,  and  a  little  sceptre  in  her  hand  .  .  . 
only  the  queen  was  Maggie  herself  in  Lucy's  form. 

"Oh,  Lucy,"  she  burst  out,  after  kissing  her, 
"you'll  stay  with  Tom  and  me,  won't  you?  Oh./ 
kiss  her,  Tom." 

Tom,  too,  had  come  up  to  Lucy,  but  he  was  not 
going  to  kiss  her,  —  no ;  he  came  up  to  her  with 
Maggie,  because  it  seemed  easier,  on  the  whole,  than 
saying,  "  How  do  you  do  ? "  to  all  those  aunts  and 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  83 

uncles:  he  stood  looking  at  nothing  in  particular, 
with  the  blushing,  awkward  air  and  semi-smile 
which  are  common  to  shy  boys  when  in  company,  — • 
very  much  as  if  they  had  come  into  the  world  by 
mistake,  and  found  it  in  a  degree  of  undress  that 
was  quite  embarrassing. 

"  Heyday  !  "  said  aunt  Glegg,  with  loud  emphasis. 
"  Do  little  boys  and  gells  come  into  a  room  without 
taking  notice  o'  their  uncles  and  aunts  ?  That 
was  n't  the  way  when  /  was  a  little  gell." 

"  Go  and  speak  to  your  aunts  and  uncles,  my 
dears,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  looking  anxious  and 
melancholy.  She-  wanted  to  whisper  to  Maggie  a 
command  to  go  and  have  her  hair  brushed. 

"  Well,  and  how  do  you  do  ?  And  I  hope  you  're 
good  children,  are  you  ? "  said  aunt  Glegg,  in  the 
same  loud  emphatic  way,  as  she  took  their  hands, 
hurting  them  with  her  large  rings,  and  kissing  their 
cheeks  much  against  their  desire.  "  Look  up,  Tom, 
look  up.  Boys  as  go  to  boarding-schools  should 
hold  their  heads  up.  Look  at  me  now."  Tom  de- 
clined that  pleasure  apparently,  for  he  tried  to 
draw  his  hand  away.  "  Put  your  hair  behind  your 
ears,  Maggie,  and  keep  your  frock  on  your  shoulder." 

Aunt  Glegg  always  spoke  to  them  in  this  loud 
emphatic  way,  as  if  she  considered  them  deaf,  or 
perhaps  rather  idiotic  :  it  was  a  means,  she  thought, 
of  making  them  feel  that  they  were  accountable 
creatures,  and  might  be  a  salutary  check  on  naughty- 
tendencies.  Bessy's  children  were  so  spoiled,— 
they  'd  need  have  somebody  to  make  them  feel 
their  duty. 

"  Well,  my  dears,"  said  aunt  Pullet,  in  a  compas- 
sionate voice,  "  you  grow  wonderful  fast.  I  doubt 
they'll  outgrow  their  strength,"  she  added,  looking 


§4  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

over  their  heads  with  a  melancholy  expression  at 
their  mother.  "  I  think  the  gell  has  too  much  hair. 
I  'd  have  it  thinned  and  cut  shorter,  sister,  if  I  was 
you :  it  is  n't  good  for  her  health.  It 's  that  as 
makes  her  skin  so  brown,  I  should  n't  wonder. 
Don't  you  think  so,  sister  Deane  ? " 

"  I  can't  say,  I  'm  sure,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Deane, 
shutting  her  lips  close  again,  and  looking  at  Maggie 
with  a  critical  eye. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  "  the  child 's  healthy 
enough,  —  there  's  nothing  ails  her.  There  's  red 
wheat  as  well  as  white,  for  that  matter,  and  some 
like  the  dark  grain  best.  But  it  'ud  be  as  well  if 
Bessy  'ud  have  the  child's  hair  cut,  so  as  it  'ud  lie 
smooth." 

A  dreadful  resolve  was  gathering  in  Maggie's 
breast,  but  it  was  arrested  by  the  desire  to  know 
from  her  aunt  Deane  whether  she  would  leave  Lucy 
behind :  aunt  Deane  would  hardly  ever  let  Lucy 
come  to  see  them.  After  various  reasons  for  refusal, 
Mrs.  Deane  appealed  to  Lucy  herself. 

"  You  would  n't  like  to  stay  behind  without 
mother,  should  you,  Lucy  ? " 

"  Yes,  please,  mother,"  said  Lucy,  timidly,  blush- 
ing very  pink  all  over  her  little  neck. 

"  Well  done,  Lucy  !  Let  her  stay,  Mrs.  Deane. 
let  her  stay,"  said  Mr.  Deane,  a  large  but  alert-looP- 
ing  man,  with  a  type  of  physique  to  be  seen  in  all 
ranks  of  English  society,  —  bald  crown,  red  whiskers, 
full  forehead,  and  general  solidity  without  heaviness. 
You  may  see  noblemen  like  Mr.  Deane,  and  you 
may  see  grocers  or  day-labourers  like  him  ;  but  the 
keenness  of  his  brown  eyes  was  less  common  than 
his  contour.  He  held  a  silver  snuff-box  very  tightly 
in  liis  hand,  and  now  and  then  exchanged  a  pinch 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  85 

with  Mr.  Tulliver,  whose  box  was  only  silver- 
mounted,  so  that  it  was  naturally  a  joke  between 
them  that  Mr.  Tulliver  wanted  to  exchange  snuff- 
boxes also.  Mr.  Deane' s  box  had  been  given  him  by 
the  superior  partners  in  the  firm  to  which  he  be- 
longed, at  the  same  time  that  they  gave  him  a  share  in 
the  business,  in  acknowledgment  of  his  valuable  ser- 
vices as  manager.  No  man  was  thought  more  highly 
of  in  St.  Ogg's  than  Mr.  Deane,  and  some  persons  were 
even  of  opinion  that  Miss  Susan  Dodson,  who  was 
once  held  to  have  made  the  worst  match  of  all  the 
Dodson  sisters,  might  one  day  ride  in  a  better  car- 
riage, and  live  in  a  better  house,  even  than  her 
sister  Pullet.  There  was  no  knowing  where  a  man 
would  stop  who  had  got  his  foot  into  a  great  mill- 
owning,  ship-owning  business  like  that  of  Guest 
&  Co.,  with  a  banking  concern  attached.  And  Mrs. 
Deane,  as  her  intimate  female  friends  observed,  was 
proud  and  "  having  "  enough  :  she  would  n't  let  her 
husband  stand  still  in  the  world  for  want  of 
spurring. 

"  Maggie,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  beckoning  Maggie 
to  her,  and  whispering  in  her  ear,  as  soon  as  this 
point  of  Lucy's  staying  was  settled,  "  go  and  get 
your  hair  brushed,  —  do,  for  shame.  I  told  you  not 
to  come  in  without  going  to  Martha  first ;  you  know 
I  did." 

"Tom,  come  out  with  me,"  whispered  Maggie, 
pulling  his  sleeve  as  she  passed  him ;  and  Tom 
followed  willingly  enough. 

"  Come  upstairs  with  me,  Tom,"  she  whispered, 
when  they  were  outside  the  door.  "  There 's  some- 
thing I  want  to  do  before  dinner." 

"There's  no  time  to  play  at  anything  before 
dinner,"  said  Tom,  whose  imagination  was  impatient 
of  any  intermediate  prospect. 


86  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Oh  yes,  there  is  time  for  this,  —  do  come.  Tom." 

Tom  followed  Maggie  upstairs  into  her  mother's 
room,  arid  saw  her  go  at  once  to  a  drawer,  from 
which  she  took  out  a  large  pair  of  scissors. 

"  What  are  they  for,  Maggie  ? "  said  Tom,  feeling 
his  curiosity  awakened. 

Maggie  answered  by  seizing  her  front  locks  and 
cutting  them  straight  across  the  middle  of  her 
forehead. 

"  Oh,  my  buttons,  Maggie,  you  '11  catch  it ! "  ex- 
claimed Tom;  "you'd  better  not  cut  any  more 
off." 

Snip !  went  the  great  scissors  again,  while  Tom 
was  speaking ;  and  he  could  n't  help  feeling  it  was 
rather  good  fun  :  Maggie  would  look  so  queer. 

"  Here,  Tom,  cut  it  behind  for  me,"  said  Maggie, 
excited  by  her  own  daring,  and  anxious  to  finish 
the  deed. 

"  You  '11  catch  it,  you  know,"  said  Tom,  nodding 
his  head  in  an  admonitory  manner,  and  hesitating 
a  little  as  he  took  the  scissors. 

"Never  mind, — make  haste  !"  said  Maggie,  giving 
a  little  stamp  with  her  foot.  Her  cheeks  were 
quite  flushed. 

The  black  locks  were  so  thick, —  nothing  could 
be  more  tempting  to  a  lad  who  had  already  tasted 
the  forbidden  pleasure  of  cutting  the  pony's  mane. 
I  speak  to  those  who  know  the  satisfaction  of 
making  a  pair  of  shears  meet  through  a  duly  resist- 
ing mass  of  hair.  One  delicious  grinding  snip,  and 
then  another  and  another,  and  the  hinder  locks  fell 
heavily  on  the  floor,  and  Maggie  stood  cropped  in  a 
jagged,  uneven  manner,  but  with  a  sense  of  clear- 
ness and  freedom,  as  if  she  had  emerged  from  a 
wood  into  the  open  plain. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  87 

"  Oh,  Maggie,"  said  Tom,  jumping  round  her,  and 
slapping  his  knees  as  he  laughed,  "  oh,  my  buttons, 
what  a  queer  thing  you  look  !  Look  at  yourself  in 
the  glass, — you  look  like  the  idiot  we  throw  out 
nutshells  to  at  school." 

Maggie  felt  an  unexpected  pang.  She  had  thought 
beforehand  chiefly  of  her  own  deliverance  from  her 
teasing  hair  and  teasing  remarks  about  it,  and 
something  also  of  the  triumph  she  should  have  over 
her  mother  and  her  aunts  by  this  very  decided 
course  of  action :  she  did  n't  want  her  hair  to  look 
pretty,  —  that  was  out  of  the  question,  —  she  only 
wanted  people  to  think  her  a  clever  little  girl,  and 
not  to  find  fault  with  her.  But  now,  when  Tom 
began  to  laugh  at  her,  and  say  she  was  like  the  idiot, 
the  affair  had  quite  a  new  aspect.  She  looked  in 
the  glass,  and  still  Tom  laughed  and  clapped  his 
hands,  and  Maggie's  flushed  cheeks  began  to  pale, 
and  her  lips  to  tremble  a  little. 

"  Oh,  Maggie,  you  '11  have  to  go  down  to  dinner 
directly,"  said  Tom.  "Oh  my!" 

"Don't  laugh  at  me,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  in  a 
passionate  tone,  with  an  outburst  of  angry  tears, 
stamping,  and  giving  him  a  push. 

"  Now,  then,  spitfire  ! "  said  Tom.  "  What  did  you 
cut  it  off  for,  then  ?  I  shall  go  down  :  I  can  smell 
the  dinner  going  in." 

He  hurried  downstairs,  and  left  poor  Maggie 
to  that  bitter  sense  of  the  irrevocable  which  was 
almost  an  every-day  experience  of  her  small  soul. 
She  could  see  clearly  enough,  now  the  thing  was 
done,  that  it  was  very  foolish,  and  that  she  should 
have  to  hear  and  think  more  about  her  hair  than 
ever ;  for  Maggie  rushed  to  her  deeds  with  passion- 
ate impulse,  and  then  saw  not  only  their  conse- 


88  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

quences,  but  what  would  have  happened  if  they 
had  not  been  done,  with  all  the  detail  and  exagge- 
rated circumstance  of  an  active  imagination.  Tom 
never  did  the  same  sort  of  foolish  things  as  Maggie, 
having  a  wonderful  instinctive  discernment  of  what 
would  turn  to  his  advantage  or  disadvantage ;  and 
so  it  happened  that  though  he  was  much  more 
wilful  and  inflexible  than  Maggie,  his  mother  hardly 
ever  called  him  naughty.  But  if  Tom  did  make  a 
mistake  of  that  sort,  he  espoused  it,  and  stood  by 
it :  he  "  did  n't  mind."  If  he  broke  the  lash  of  his 
father's  gig-whip  by  lashing  the  gate,  he  could  n't 
help  it,  —  the  whip  should  n't  have  got  caught  in 
the  hinge.  If  Tom  Tulliver  whipped  a  gate,  he 
was  convinced,  not  that  the  whipping  of  gates  by 
all  boys  was  a  justifiable  act,  but  that  he,  Tom 
Tulliver,  was  justifiable  in  whipping  that  particular 
gate,  and  he  was  n't  going  to  be  sorry.  But  Maggie, 
as  she  stood  crying  before  the  glass,  felt  it  impossible 
that  she  should  go  down  to  dinner  and  endure  the 
severe  eyes  and  severe  words  of  her  aunts,  while 
Tom,  and  Lucy,  and  Martha,  who  waited  at  table, 
and  perhaps  her  father  and  her  uncles,  would  laugh 
at  her,  —  for  if  Tom  had  laughed  at  her,  of  course 
every  one  else  would ;  and  if  she  had  only  let  her  hair 
alone,  she  could  have  sat  with  Tom  and  Lucy,  and 
had  the  apricot-pudding  and  the  custard !  What 
could  she  do  but  sob  ?  She  sat  as  helpless  and 
despairing  among  her  black  locks  as  Ajax  among 
the  slaughtered  sheep.  Very  trivial,  perhaps,  this 
anguish  seems  to  weather-worn  mortals  who  have 
to  think  of  Christmas  bills,  dead  loves,  and  broken 
friendships;  but  it  was  not  less  bitter  to  Maggie  — 
perhaps  it  was  even  more  bitter  —  than  what  we 
are  fond  of  calling  antithetically  the  real  troubles 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  89 

of  mature  life.  "Ah,  my  child,  you  will  have  real 
troubles  to  fret  about  by  and  by,"  is  the  consolation 
we  have  almost  all  of  us  had  administered  to  us  in 
our  childhood,  and  have  repeated  to  other  children 
since  we  have  been  grown  up.  We  have  all  of  us 
sobbed  so  piteously,  standing  with  tiny  bare  legs 
above  our  little  socks,  when  we  lost  sight  of  our 
mother  or  nurse  in  some  strange  plr.ce ;  but  we  can 
no  longer  recall  the  poignancy  of  that  moment  and 
weep  over  it,  as  we  do  over  the  remembered  suffer- 
ings of  five  or  ten  years  ago.  Every  one  of  those 
keen  moments  has  left  its  trace,  and  lives  in  us 
still,  but  such  traces  have  blent  themselves  irre- 
coverably with  the  firmer  texture  of  our  youth  and 
manhood ;  and  so  it  comes  that  we  can  look  on  at 
the  troubles  of  our  children  with  a  smiling  disbelief 
in  the  reality  of  their  pain.  Is  there  any  one  who 
can  recover  the  experience  of  his  childhood,  not 
merely  with  a  memory  of  what  he  did  and  what 
happened  to  him,  of  what  he  liked  and  disliked 
when  he  was  in  frock  and  trousers,  but  with  an 
intimate  penetration,  a  revived  consciousness  of  what 
he  felt  then,  —  when  it  was  so  long  from  one  Mid- 
summer to  another  ?  what  he  felt  when  his  school- 
fellows shut  him  out  of  their  game  because  he 
would  pitch  the  ball  wrong  out  of  mere  wilfulness ; 
or  on  a  rainy  day  in  the  holidays,  when  he  did  n't 
know  how  to  amuse  himself,  and  fell  from  idleness 
into  mischief,  from  mischief  into  defiance,  and  from 
defiance  into  sulkiness ;  or  when  his  mother  abso- 
lutely refused  to  let  him  have  a  tailed  coat  that 
"half,"  although  every  other  boy  of  his  age  had 
gone  into  tails  already  ?  Surely,  if  we  could  recall 
that  early  bitterness,  and  the  dim  guesses,  the 
strangely  perspectiveless  conception  of  life  that 


90  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

gave  the  bitterness  its  intensity,  we  should  not 
pooh-pooh  the  griefs  of  our  children. 

"  Miss  Maggie,  you  're  to  come  down  this  min- 
ute," said  Kezia,  entering  the  room  hurriedly. 
"  Lawks !  what  have  you  been  a-doing  ?  I  niver 
see  such  a  fright !  " 

"Don't,  Kezia ! "  said  Maggie,  angrily.    "  Go  away ! " 

"  But  I  tell  you,  you  're  to  come  down,  Miss,  this 
minute :  your  mother  says  so,"  said  Kezia,  going  up 
to  Maggie  and  taking  her  by  the  hand  to  raise  her 
from  the  floor. 

"  Get  away,  Kezia ;  I  don't  want  any  dinner,"  said 
Maggie,  resisting  Kezia's  arm.  "  I  sha'u't  come." 

"  Oh,  well,  I  can't  stay.  I  've  got  to  wait  at 
dinner,"  said  Kezia,  going  out  again. 

"Maggie,  you  little  silly,"  said  Tom,  peeping  into 
the  room  ten  minutes  after,  "  why  don't  you  come 
and  have  your  dinner  ?  There 's  lots  o'  goodies, 
and  mother  says  you  're  to  come.  What  are  you 
crying  for,  you  little  spoony  ? " 

Oh,  it  was  dreadful !  Tom  was  so  hard  and  un- 
concerned ;  if  he  had  been  crying  on  the  floor, 
Maggie  would  have  cried  too.  And  there  was  the 
dinner,  so  nice ;  and  she  was  so  hungry.  It  was 
very  bitter. 

But  Tom  was  not  altogether  hard.  He  was  not 
inclined  to  cry,  and  did  not  feel  that  Maggie's  grief 
spoiled  his  prospect  of  the  sweets;  but  he  went 
and  put  his  head  near  her,  and  said  in  a  lower, 
comforting  tone,  — 

"  Won't  you  come,  then,  Magsie  ?  Shall  I  bring 
you  a  bit  o'  pudding  when  I  Ve  had  mine  ?  .  .  . 
and  a  custard  and  things  ? " 

"  Ye-e-es,"  said  Maggie,  beginning  to  feel  life  a 
little  more  tolerable. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  91 

"Very  well,"  said  Tom,  going  away.  But  he 
turned  again  at  the  door  and  said,  "  But  you  'd 
better  come,  you  know.  There's  the  dessert  — 
nuts,  you  know  —  and  cowslip  wine." 

Maggie's  tears  had  ceased,  and  she  looked  reflec- 
tive as  Tom  left  her.  His  good-nature  had  taken  off 
the  keenest  edge  of  her  suffering,  and  nuts  with  cow- 
slip wine  began  to  assert  their  legitimate  influence. 

Slowly  she  rose  from  amongst  her  scattered 
locks,  and  slowly  she  made  her  way  downstairs. 
Then  she  stood  leaning  with  one  shoulder  against 
the  frame  of  the  dining-parlour  door,  peeping  in 
when  it  was  ajar.  She  saw  Tom  and  Lucy  with  an 
empty  chair  between  them,  and  there  were  the 
custards  on  a  side-table,  —  it  was  too  much.  She 
slipped  in  and  went  towards  the  empty  chair. 
But  she  had  no  sooner  sat  down  than  she  repented, 
and  wished  herself  back  again. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  gave  a  little  scream  as  she  saw 
her,  and  felt  such  a  "  turn  "  that  she  dropped  the 
large  gravy-spoon  into  the  dish  with  the  most  se- 
rious results  to  the  table-cloth.  For  Kezia  had  not 
betrayed  the  reason  of  Maggie's  refusal  to  come 
down,  not  liking  to  give  her  mistress  a  shock  in  the 
moment  of  carving,  and  Mrs.  Tulliver  thought  there 
was  nothing  worse  in  question  than  a  fit  of  perverse- 
ness,  which  was  inflicting  its  own  punishment  by 
depriving  Maggie  of  half  her  dinner. 

Mrs.  Tul  liver's  scream  made  all  eyes  turn  towards 
the  same  point  as  her  own,  and  Maggie's  cheeks 
and  ears  began  to  burn,  while  uncle  Glegg,  a  kind- 
looking,  white-haired  old  gentleman,  said,  — 

"  Heyday  !  what  little  gell's  this  ?  —  why,  I  don't 
know  her.  Is  it  some  little  gell  you  Ve  picked  up 
in  the  road,  Kezia?" 


92  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS 

"Why,  she's  gone  and  cut  her  hair  herself," 
said  Mr.  Tulliver  in  an  undertone  to  Mr.  Deane, 
laughing  with  much  enjoyment.  "Did  you  ever 
know  such  a  little  hussy  as  it  is  ? " 

"  Why,  little  miss,  you  Ve  made  yourself  look 
very  funny,"  said  uncle  Pullet;  and  perhaps  he 
never  in  his  life  made  an  observation  which  was 
felt  to  be  so  lacerating. 

"  Fie,  for  shame  !  "  said  aunt  Glegg,  in  her  loud- 
est, severest  tone  of  reproof.  "  Little  gells  as  cut 
their  own  hair  should  be  whipped  and  fed  on  bread 
and  water,  —  not  come  and  sit  down  with  their 
aunts  and  uncles." 

"Ay,  ay,"  said  uncle  Glegg,  meaning  to  give  a 
playful  turn  to  this  denunciation,  "  she  must  be 
sent  to  jail,  I  think,  and  they  '11  cut  the  rest  of  her 
hair  off  there,  and  make  it  all  even." 

"  She 's  more  like  a  gypsy  nor  ever,"  said  aunt 
Pullet,  in  a  pitying  tone ;  "  it 's  very  bad  luck, 
sister,  as  the  gell  should  be  so  brown,  —  the  boy  's 
fair  enough.  I  doubt  it  '11  stand  in  her  way  i'  life 
to  be  so  brown." 

"  She 's  a  naughty  child,  as  '11  break  her  mother's 
heart,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  the  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

Maggie  seemed  to  be  listening  to  a  chorus  of  re- 
proach and  derision.  Her  first  flush  came  from 
anger,  which  gave  her  a  transient  power  of  defiance, 
and  Tom  thought  she  was  braving  it  out,  supported 
by  the  recent  appearance  of  the  pudding  and  cus- 
tard. Under  this  impression,  he  whispered,  "  Oh 
my !  Maggie,  I  told  you  you  'd  catch  it."  He  meant 
to  be  friendly,  but  Maggie  felt  convinced  that  Tom 
was  rejoicing  in  her  ignominy.  Her  feeble  power 
of  defiance  left  her  in  an  instant,  her  heart  swelled, 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  93 

and,  getting  up  from  her  chair,  she  ran  to  her 
father,  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulder,  and  burst  out 
into  loud  sobbing. 

"  Come,  come,  my  wench,"  said  her  father,  sooth- 
ingly, putting  his  arm  round  her,  "  never  mind ;  you 
was  i'  the  right  to  cut  it  off  if  it  plagued  you.  Give 
over  crying ;  father  '11  take  your  part." 

Delicious  words  of  tenderness !  Maggie  never 
forgot  any  of  these  moments  when  her  father  "  took 
her  part ; "  she  kept  them  in  her  heart,  and  thought 
of  them  long  years  after,  when  eveiy  one  else  said 
that  her  father  had  done  very  ill  by  his  children. 

"  How  your  husband  does  spoil  that  child,  Bessy  !" 
said  Mrs.  Glegg,  in  a  loud  "  aside  "  to  Mrs.  Tulliver. 
"  It  '11  be  the  ruin  of  her,  if  you  don't  take  care. 
My  father  never  brought  his  children  up  so,  else  we 
should  ha'  been  a  different  sort  o'  family  to  what 
we  are." 

Mrs.  Tulliver's  domestic  sorrows  seemed  at  this 
moment  to  have  reached  the  point  at  which  insen- 
sibility begins.  She  took  no  notice  of  her  sister's 
remark,  but  threw  back  her  cap-strings  and  dis- 
pensed the  pudding  in  mute  resignation. 

With  the  dessert  there  came  entire  deliverance  for 
Maggie,  for  the  children  were  told  they  might  have 
their  nuts  and  wine  in  the  summer-house,  since  the 
day  was  so  mild  ;  and  they  scampered  out  among  the 
budding  bushes  of  the  garden  with  the  alacrity  of 
small  animals  getting  from  under  a  burning-glass. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  had  her  special  reason  for  this  per- 
mission :  now  the  dinner  was  despatched,  and  every 
one's  mind  disengaged,  it  was  the  right  moment  to 
communicate  Mr.  Tulliver's  intention  concerning 
Tom,  and  it  would  be  as  well  for  Tom  himself  to  be 
absent.  The  children  were  used  to  hear  themselves 


94  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

talked  of  as  freely  as  if  they  were  birds,  and  could 
understand  nothing,  however  they  might  stretch 
their  necks  and  listen ;  but  on  this  occasion  Mrs. 
Tulliver  manifested  an  unusual  discretion,  because 
she  had  recently  had  evidence  that  the  going  to 
school  to  a  clergyman  was  a  sore  point  with  Tom, 
who  looked  at  it  as  very  much  on  a  par  with  going 
to  school  to  a  constable.  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  a  sigh- 
ing sense  that  her  husband  would  do  as  he  liked, 
whatever  sister  Glegg  said,  or  sister  Pullet  either, 
but  at  least  they  would  not  be  able  to  say,  if  the 
thing  turned  out  ill,  that  Bessy  had  fallen  in  with 
her  husband's  folly  without  letting  her  own  friends 
know  a  word  about  it. 

"Mr.  Tulliver,"  she  said,  interrupting  her  husband 
in  his  talk  with  Mr.  Deane,  "  it 's  time  now  to  tell 
the  children's  aunts  and  uncles  what  you  're  think- 
ing of  doing  with  Tom,  is  n't  it  ? " 

"Very  well,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  rather  sharply, 
"I've  no  objections  to  tell  anybody  what  I  mean 
to  do  with  him.  I  've  settled,"  he  added,  looking 
towards  Mr.  Glagg  and  Mr.  Deane,  —  "I 've  settled 
to  send  him  to  a  Mr.  Stelling,  a  parson,  down  at 
King's  Lorton,  there,  —  an  uncommon  clever  fellow, 
I  understand,  as '11  put  him  up  to  most  things." 

There  was  a  rustling  demonstration  of  surprise  in 
the  company,  such  as  you  may  have  observed  in  a 
country  congregation  when  they  hear  an  allusion  to 
their  week-day  affairs  from  the  pulpit,  It  was 
equally  astonishing  to  the  aunts  and  uncles  to  find 
a  parson  introduced  into  Mr.  Tulliver's  family  ar- 
rangements. As  for  uncle  Pullet,  he  could  hardly 
have  been  more  thoroughly  obfuscated  if  Mr.  Tulliver 
had  said  that  he  was  going  to  send  Tom  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor :  for  uncle  Pullet  belonged  to  that  extinct 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  95 

class  of  British  yeomen  who,  dressed  in  good  broad- 
cloth, paid  high  rates  and  taxes,  went  to  church,  and 
ate  a  particularly  good  dinner  on  Sunday,  without 
dreaming  that  the  British  constitution  in  Church 
and  State  had  a  traceable  origin  any  more  than  the 
solar  system  and  the  fixed  stars.  It  is  melancholy, 
but  true,  that  Mr.  Pullet  had  the  most  confused 
idea  of  a  bishop  as  a  sort  of  a  baronet,  who  might  or 
might  not  be  a  clergyman  ;  and  as  the  rector  of  his 
own  parish  was  a  man  of  high  family  and  fortune, 
the  idea  that  a  clergyman  could  be  a  schoolmaster 
was  too  remote  from  Mr.  Pullet's  experience  to  be 
readily  conceivable.  1  know  it  is  difficult  for  people 
in  these  instructed  times  to  believe  in  uncle  Pullet's 
ignorance ;  but  let  them  reflect  on  the  remarkable 
results  of  a  great  natural  faculty  under  favouring 
circumstances.  And  uncle  Pullet  had  a  great  natu- 
ral faculty  for  ignorance.  He  was  the  first  to  give 
utterance  to  his  astonishment. 

"  Why,  what  can  you  be  going  to  send  him  to  a 
parson  for  ?  "  he  said,  with  an  amazed  twinkling  in 
his  eyes,  looking  at  Mr.  Glegg  and  Mr.  Deane,  to 
see  if  they  showed  any  signs  of  comprehension. 

"  Why,  because  the  parsons  are  the  best  school- 
masters, by  what  I  can  make  out,"  said  poor  Mr. 
Tulliver,  who,  in  the  maze  of  this  puzzling  world, 
laid  hold  of  any  clew  with  great  readiness  and  te- 
nacity. "  Jacobs  at  th'  academy  's  no  parson,  and 
he  's  done  very  bad  by  the  boy  ;  and  I  made  up  my 
mind,  if  I  sent  him  to  school  again,  it  should  be  to 
somebody  different  to  Jacobs.  And  this  Mr.  Stell- 
ing,  by  what  I  can  make  out,  is  the  sort  o'  man  I 
want.  And  I  mean  my  boy  to  go  to  him  at  Mid- 
summer," he  concluded,  in  a  tone  of  decision,  tapping 
his  siiuff-box  and  taking  a  pinch. 


96  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  You  11  have  to  pay  a  swinging  half-yearly  bill, 
then,  eh,  Tulliver  ?  The  clergymen  have  highish 
notions,  in  general,"  said  Mr.  Deane,  taking  snuff 
vigorously,  as  he  always  did  when  wishing  to  main- 
tain a  neutral  position. 

"  What !  do  you  think  the  parson  '11  teach  him  to 
know  a  good  sample  o'  wheat  when  he  sees  it,  neigh- 
bour Tulliver  ? "  said  Mr.  Glegg.  who  was  fond  of 
his  jest ;  and,  having  retired  from  business,  felt  that 
it  was  not  only  allowable  but  becoming  in  him  to 
take  a  playful  view  of  things. 

"  Why,  you  see,  I  've  got  a  plan  i'  my  head  about 
Tom,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  pausing  after  that  state- 
ment and  lifting  up  his  glass. 

"  Well,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  speak,  and  it 's  sel- 
dom as  I  am,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,-  with  a  tone  of  bitter 
meaning,  "  I  should  like  to  know  what  good  is  to 
come  to  the  boy,  by  bringiu'  him  up  above  his 
fortin." 

"  Why,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  not  looking  at  Mrs. 
Glegg,  but  at  the  male  part  of  his  audience,  "  you 
see,  1  've  made  up  my  mind  not  to  bring  Tom  up  to 
my  own  business.  I  've  had  my  thoughts  about  it 
all  along,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  by  what  I  saw 
with  Garnett  and  his  son.  I  mean  to  put  him  to 
some  business  as  he  can  go  into  without  capital, 
and  I  want  to  give  him  an  eddication  as  he  '11  be 
even  wi'  the  lawyers  and  folks,  and  put  me  up  to  a 
notion  now  an'  then." 

Mrs.  Glegg  emitted  a  long  sort  of  guttural  sound 
with  closed  lips,  that  smiled  in  mingled  pity  and 
scorn. 

"  It  'ud  be  a  fine  deal  bstter  for  some  people," 
she  said,  after  that  introductory  note,  "  if  they  'd  let 
the  lawyers  alone." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  97 

"  Is  he  at  the  head  of  a  grammar  school,  then,  this 
clergyman,  —  such  as  that  at  Market  Bewley  ? "  said 
Mr.  Deane. 

"  No,  —  nothing  o'  that,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver.  "  He 
won't  take  more  than  two  or  three  pupils,  —  and  so 
he'll  have  the  more  time  to  attend  to  'em,  you 
know." 

"Ah,  and  get  his  eddication  done  the  sooner : 
they  can't  learn  much  at  a  time  when  there's  so 
many  of  'em,"  said  uncle  Pullet,  feeling  that  he  was 
getting  quite  an  insight  into  this  difficult  matter. 

"  But  he  '11  want  the  more  pay,  I  doubt,"  said  Mr. 
Glegg. 

"  Ay,  ay,  a  cool  hundred  a  year,  —  that 's  all,"  said 
Mr.  Tulliver,  with  some  pride  at  his  own  spirited 
course.  "  But  then,  you  know,  it 's  an  investment ; 
Tom's  eddication  'ull  be  so  much  capital  to  him." 

"  Ay,  there  's  something  in  that,"  said  Mr.  Glegg. 
"  Well,  well,  neighbour  Tulliver,  you  may  be  right, 
you  may  be  right : 

'  AVhen  land  is  gone  and  money  's  spent, 
Then  learning  is  most  excellent.' 

I  remember  seeing  those  two  lines  wrote  on  a  win- 
dow at  Buxton.  But  us  that  have  got  no  learning 
had  better  keep  our  money,  eh,  neighbour  Pullet  ?" 
Mr.  Glegg  rubbed  his  knees  and  looked  very 
pleasant. 

"  Mr.  Glegg,  I  wonder  at  you,"  said  his  wife. 
"  It 's  very  unbecoming  in  a  man  o'  your  age  and 
belongings." 

"  What 's  unbecoming,  Mrs.  G.  ? "  said  Mr.  Glegg, 
winking  pleasantly  at  the  company.  "My  new 
blue  coat  as  I 've  got  on  ? " 

"  I  pity  your  weakness,  Mr.   Glegg.     I  say  it 's 

VOL.    I.  —  7 


98  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

unbecoming  to  be  making  a  joke  when  you  see  your 
own  kin  going  headlongs  to  ruin." 

"  If  you  mean  me  by  that,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
considerably  nettled,  "  you  need  n't  trouble  yourself 
to  fret  about  me.  I  can  manage  my  own  affairs 
without  troubling  other  folks." 

"  Bless  me  ! "  said  Mr.  Deane,  judiciously  intro- 
ducing a  new  idea,  "  why,  now  I  come  to  think  of 
it,  somebody  said  Wakem  was  going  to  send  his  son 
—  the  deformed  lad  —  to  a  clergyman,  —  did  n't 
they,  Susan  ? "  (appealing  to  his  wife). 

"  I  can  give  no  account  of  it,  I  'm  sure,"  said  Mrs. 
Deane,  closing  her  lips  very  tightly  again.  Mrs. 
Deane  was  not  a  woman  to  take  part  in  a  scene 
where  missiles  were  flying. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  speaking  all  the  more 
cheerfully,  that  Mrs.  Glegg  might  see  he  didn't 
mind  her,  "  if  Wakem  thinks  o'  sending  his  son  to  a 
clergyman,  depend  on  it  I  shall  make  no  mistake  i' 
sending  Tom  to  one.  Wakern  's  as  big  a  scoundrel 
as  Old  Harry  ever  made,  but  he  knows  the  length 
of  every  man's  foot  he  's  got  to  deal  with.  Ay,  ay, 
tell  me  who  's  Wakem's  butcher,  and  I  '11  tell  you 
where  to  get  your  meat." 

"But  lawyer  Wakein's  son  's  got  a  hump-back," 
said  Mrs.  Pullet,  who  felt  as  if  the  whole  business 
had  a  funereal  aspect ;  "  it 's  more  nat'ral  to  send 
him  to  a  clergyman." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  interpreting  Mrs.  Pullet's 
observation  with  erroneous  plausibility,  "  you  must 
consider  that,  neighbour  Tulliver ;  Wakem's  son  is  n't 
likely  to  follow  any  business.  Wakem  'ull  make  a 
gentleman  of  him,  poor  fellow." 

"  Mr.  Glegg,"  said  Mrs.  G.,  in  a  tone  which 
implied  that  her  indignation  would  fizz  and  ooze  a 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  99 

little,  though  she  was  determined  to  keep  it  corked 
up,  "  you  'd  far  better  hold  your  tongue.  Mr.  Tulli- 
ver  does  n't  want  to  know  your  opinion  nor  mine 
neither.  There  's  folks  in  the  world  as  know  better 
than  everybody  else." 

"  Why,  I  should  think  that 's  you,  if  we  're  to 
trust  your  own  tale,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  beginning 
to  boil  up  again. 

"  Oh,  /  say  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  sarcasti- 
cally. "  My  advice  has  never  been  asked,  and  I 
don't  give  it." 

"  It  '11  be  the  lirst  time,  then,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver. 
"It's  the  only  thing  you  're  over-ready  at  giving." 

"  I  've  been  over-ready  at  lending,  then,  if  I 
have  n't  been  over-ready  at  giving,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg. 
"  There 's  folks  I  've  lent  money  to,  as  perhaps  I 
shall  repent  o'  lending  money  to  kin." 

"  Come,  come,  come,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  soothingly. 
But  Mr.  Tulliver  was  not  to  be  hindered  of  his 
retort. 

"  You  Ve  got  a  bond  for  it,  I  reckon,"  he  said  ; 
"  and  you  've  had  your  five  per  cent,  kin  or  no 
kin." 

"  Sister,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  pleadingly,  "  drink 
your  wine,  and  let  me  give  you  some  almonds  and 
raisins." 

"  Bessy,  I  'm  sorry  for  you,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  very 
much  with  the  feeling  of  a  cur  that  seizes  the 
opportunity  of  diverting  his  bark  towards  the  man 
who  carries  no  stick.  "  It 's  poor  work  talking  o' 
almonds  and  raisins." 

"  Lors,  sister  Glegg,  don't  be  so  quarrelsome," 
said  Mrs.  Pullet,  beginning  to  cry  a  little.  "  You 
may  be  struck  with  a  fit,  getting  so  red  in  the  face 
after  dinner,  and  we  are  but  just  out  o'  mourning, 


ioo  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

all  of  us, —  and  all  wi'  gowns  craped  alike  and  just 
put  by,  —  it 's  very  bad  among  sisters." 

"I  should  think  it  is  bad,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg. 
"Things  are  come  to  a  fine  pass  when  one  sister 
invites  the  other  to  her  house  o'  purpose  to  quarrel 
with  her  and  abuse  her." 

"  Softly,  softly,  Jane, — be  reasonable, — be  reason- 
able," said  Mr.  Glegg. 

But  while  he  was  speaking,  Mr.  Tulliver,  who 
had  by  no  means  said  enough  to  satisfy  his  anger, 
burst  out  again. 

"  Who  wants  to  quarrel  with  you  ? "  he  said. 
"  It 's  you  as  can't  let  people  alone,  but  must  be 
gnawing  at  'em  forever.  /  should  never  want  to 
quarrel  with  any  woman  if  she  kept  her  place." 

"My  place,  indeed!"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  getting 
rather  more  shrill.  "  There 's  your  betters,  Mr. 
Tulliver,  as  are  dead  and  in  their  grave,  treated  me 
with  a  different  sort  o'  respect  to  what  you  do,  — 
though  I  've  got  a  husband  as  '11  sit  by  and  see  me 
abused  by  them  as  'ud  never  ha'  had  the  chance  if 
there  had  n't  been  them  in  our  family  as  married 
worse  than  they  might  ha'  done." 

"If  you  talk  o'  that,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  "my 
family  's  as  good  as  yours,  —  and  better,  for  it  has  n't 
got  a  damned  ill-tempered  woman  in  it." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  rising  from  her  chair,  "  I 
don't  know  whether  you  think  it 's  a  fine  thing  to 
sit  by  and  hear  me  swore  at,  Mr.  Glegg ;  but  I  'm 
not  going  to  stay  a  minute  longer  in  this  house. 
You  can  stay  behind,  and  come  home  with  the  gig 
—  and  I'll  walk  home." 

"  Dear  heart,  dear  heart ! "  said  Mr.  Glegg,  in  a 
melancholy  tone,  as  he  followed  his  wife  out  of  the 
room. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  101 

"Mr.  Tulliver, how  could  you  talk  so  ?  "  said  Mrs 
Tulliver,  with  the  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"  Let  her  go,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  too  hot  to  be 
damped  by  any  amount  of  tears.  "  Let  her  go,  and 
the  sooner  the  better :  she  won't  be  trying  to  domi- 
neer over  me  again  in  a  hurry." 

"  Sister  Pullet,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  helplessly,  "  do 
you  think  it  'ud  be  any  use  for  you  to  go  after  her 
and  try  to  pacify  her  ?  " 

"  Better  not,  better  not,"  said  Mr.  Deane.  "  You  '11 
make  it  up  another  day." 

"  Then,  sisters,  shall  we  go  and  look  at  the  chil- 
dren ?  "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  drying  her  eyes. 

No  proposition  could  have  been  more  seasonable. 
Mr.  Tulliver  felt  very  much  as  if  the  air  had  been 
cleared  of  obtrusive  flies  now  the  women  were  out 
of  the  room.  There  were  few  things  he  liked  better 
than  a  chat  with  Mr.  Deane,  whose  close  applica- 
tion to  business  allowed  the  pleasure  very  rarely. 
Mr.  Deane,  he  considered,  was  the  "  knowingest " 
man  of  his  acquaintance,  and  he  had  besides  a  ready 
causticity  of  tongue  that  made  an  agreeable  supple- 
ment to  Mr.  Tulliver's  own  tendency  that  way, 
which  had  remained  in  rather  an  inarticulate  con- 
dition. And  now  the  women  were  gone,  they  could 
carry  on  their  serious  talk  without  frivolous  inter- 
ruption. They  could  exchange  their  views  concern- 
ing the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whose  conduct  in  the 
Catholic  Question  had  thrown  such  an  entirely  new 
light  on  his  character ;  and  speak  slightingly  of  his 
conduct  at  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  which  he  would 
never  have  won  if  there  had  n't  been  a  great  many 
Englishmen  at  his  back,  not  to  speak  of  Blucher 
and  the  Prussians,  who,  as  Mr.  Tulliver  had  heard 
from  a  person  of  particular  knowledge  in  that 


102  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

matter,  had  come  up  in  the  very  nick  of  time; 
though  hare  there  was  a  slight  dissidence,  Mr. 
Deane  remarking  that  he  was  not  disposed  to  give 
much  credit  to  the  Prussians,  —  the  build  of  their 
vessels,  together  with  the  unsatisfactory  character 
of  transactions  in  Dantzic  bear,  inclining  him  to 
form  rather  a  low  view  of  Prussian  pluck  generally. 
Eather  beaten  on  this  ground,  Mr.  Tulliver  pro- 
ceeded to  express  his  fears  that  the  country  could 
never  again  be  what  it  ussd  to  be ;  but  Mr.  Deane, 
attached  to  a  firm  of  which  the  returns  were  on  the 
increase,  naturally  took  a  more  lively  view  of  the 
present ;  and  had  some  details  to  give  concerning 
the  state  of  the  imports,  especially  in  hides  and 
spelter,  which  soothed  Mr.  Tulliver's  imagination  by 
throwing  into  more  distant  perspective  the  period 
when  the  country  would  become  utterly  the  prey  of 
Papists  and  Radicals,  and  there  would  be  no  more 
chance  for  honest  men. 

Uncle  Pullet  sat  by  and  listened  with  twinkling 

eyes  to  these  high  matters.     He  did  n't  understand 

politics  himself,  —  thought  they  were  a  natural  gift, 

-  but  by  what  he  could  make  out,  this  Duke  of 

Wellington  was  no  better  than  he  should  be. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MK.   TULLIVER   SHOWS   HIS   WEAKER   SIDE. 

*  SUPPOSE  sister  Glegg  should  call  her  money  in,  — 
it  'ud  be  very  awkward  for  you  to  have  to  raise  five 
hundred  pounds  now,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver  to  her 
husband  that  evening,  as  she  took  a  plaintive  re- 
view of  the  day. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  had  lived  thirteen  years  with  her 
husband,  yet  she  retained  in  all  the  freshness  of 
her  early  married  life  a  facility  of  saying  things 
which  drove  him  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the 
one  she  desired.  Some  minds  are  wonderful  for 
keeping  their  bloom  in  this  way,  as  a  palriaichal 
gold-fish  apparently  retains  to  the  last  its  youthful 
illusion  that  it  can  swim  in  a  straight  line  teyond 
the  encircling  glass.  Mrs.  Tulliver  was  an  amiable 
fish  of  this  kind,  and,  after  running  her  head  against 
the  same  resisting  medium  for  thirteen  years,  would 
go  at  it  again  to-day  with  undulled  alacrity. 

This  observation  of  hers  tended  directly  to  con- 
vince Mr.  Tulliver  that  it  would  not  be  at  all  awk- 
ward for  him  to  raise  five  hundred  pounds ;  and 
when  Mrs.  Tulliver  became  rather  pressing  to  know 
how  he  would  raise  it  without  mortgaging  the  mill 
and  the  house  which  he  had  said  he  never  would 
mortgage,  since  nowadays  people  were  none  so  ready 
to  lend  money  without  security,  Mr.  Tulliver,  get- 
ting warm,  declared  that  Mrs.  Glegg  might  do  as 


104  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

she  liked  about  calling  in  her  money,  —  he  should 
pay  it  in,  whether  or  not.  He  was  not  going  to  be 
beholden  to  his  wife's  sisters.  When  a  man  had 
married  into  a  family  where  there  was  a  whole 
litter  of  women,  he  might  have  plenty  to  put  up 
with  if  he  chose ;  but  Mr.  Tulliver  did  not  choose. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  cried  a  little  in  a  trickling  quiet 
way  as  she  put  on  her  nightcap;  but  presently 
sank  into  a  comfortable  sleep,  lulled  by  the  thought 
that  she  would  talk  everything  over  with  her  sister 
Pullet  to-morrow,  when  she  was  to  take  the  children 
to  Garum  Firs  to  tea.  Not  that  she  looked  forward 
to  any  distinct  issue  from  that  talk ;  but  it  seemed 
impossible  that  past  events  should  be  so  obstinate 
as  to  remain  unmodified  when  they  were  complained 
against. 

Her  husband  lay  awake  rather  longer,  for  he  too 
was  thinking  of  a  visit  he  would  pay  on  the  mor- 
row ;  and  his  ideas  on  the  subject  were  not  of  so  vague 
and  soothing  a  kind  as  those  of  his  amiable  partner. 

Mr.  Tulliver,  when  under  the  influence  of  a  strong 
feeling,  had  a  promptitude  in  action  that  may  seem 
inconsistent  with  that  painful  sense  of  the  compli- 
cated puzzling  nature  of  human  affairs  under  which 
his  more  dispassionate  deliberations  were  conducted; 
but  it  is  really  not  improbable  that  there  was  a 
direct  relation  between  these  apparently  contradic- 
tory phenomena,  since  I  have  observed  that  for  get- 
ting a  strong  impression  that  a  skein  is  tangled, 
there  is  nothing  like  snatching  hastily  at  a  single 
thread.  It  was  owing  to  this  promptitude  that  Mr. 
Tulliver  was  on  horseback  soon  after  dinner  the 
next  day  (he  was  not  dyspeptic)  on  his  way  to 
Basset  to  see  his  sister  Moss  and  her  husband. 
For  having  made  up  his  mind  irrevocably  that  he 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  105 

would  pay  Mrs.  Glegg  her  loan  of  five  hundred 
pounds,  it  naturally  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  a 
promissory  note  for  three  hundred  pounds  lent  to 
his  brother-in-law  Moss,  and  if  the  said  brother-in- 
law  could  manage  to  pay  in  the  money  within  a 
given  time,  it  would  go  far  to  lessen  the  fallacious 
air  of  inconvenience  which  Mr.  Tulliver's  spirited 
step  might  have  worn  in  the  eyes  of  weak  people 
who  require  to  know  precisely  how  a  thing  is  to  be 
done  before  they  aie  strongly  confident  that  it  will 
be  easy. 

For  Mr.  Tulliver  was  in  a  position  neither  new 
nor  striking,  but,  like  other  every-day  things,  sure 
to  have  a  cumulative  effect  that  will  be  felt  in  the 
long-run :  he  was  held  to  be  a  much  more  substan- 
tial man  than  he  really  was.  And  as  we  are  all 
apt  to  believe  what  the  world  believes  about  us,  it 
was  his  habit  to  think  of  failure  and  ruin  with  the 
same  sort  of  remote  pity  with  which  a  spare  long- 
necked  man  hears  that  his  plethoric  short-necked 
neighbour  is  stricken  with  apoplexy.  He  had  been 
always  used  to  hear  pleasant  jokes  about  his  advan- 
tages as  a  man  who  worked  his  own  mill,  and  owned 
a  pretty  bit  of  land ;  and  these  jokes  naturally  kept 
up  his  sense  that  he  was  a  man  of  considerable  sub- 
stance. They  gave  a  pleasant  flavour  to  his  glass  on 
a  market-day,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  recur- 
rence of  half-yearly  payments,  Mr.  Tulliver  would 
really  have  forgotten  that  there  was  a  mortgage  of 
two  thousand  pounds  on  his  very  desirable  freehold. 
That  was  not  altogether  his  own  fault,  since  one  of 
the  thousand  pounds  was  his  sister's  fortune,  which 
he  had  to  pay  on  her  marriage ;  and  a  man  who  has 
neighbours  that  will  go  to  law  with  him,  is  not 
likely  to  pay  off  his  mortgages,  especially  if  he 


io6  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

enjoys  the  good  opinion  of  acquaintances  who  want 
to  borrow  a  hundred  pounds  on  security  too  lofty 
to  be  represented  by  parchment.  Our  friend  Mr. 
Tulliver  had  a  good-natured  fibre  in  him,  and  did 
not  like  to  give  harsh  refusals  even  to  a  sister,  who 
had  not  only  come  into  the  world  in  that  superflu- 
ous way  characteristic  of  sisters,  creating  a  necessity 
for  mortgages,  but  had  quite  thrown  herself  away 
in  marriage,  and  had  crowned  her  mistakes  by  hav- 
ing an  eighth  baby.  On  this  point  Mr.  Tulliver 
was  conscious  of  being  a  little  weak ;  but  he  apolo- 
gized to  himself  by  saying  that  poor  Gritty  had 
been  a  good-looking  wench  before  she  married 
Moss,  —  he  would  sometimes  say  this  even  with 
a  slight  tremulousness  in  his  voice.  But  this  morn- 
ing he  was  in  a  mood  more  becoming  a  man  of  busi- 
ness, and  in  the  course  of  his  ride  along  the  Basset 
lanes,  with  their  deep  ruts,  —  lying  so  far  away  from 
a  market-town  that  the  labour  of  drawing  produce 
and  manure  was  enough  to  take  away  the  best  part 
of  the  profits  on  such  poor  land  as  that  parish  was 
made  of,  —  he  got  up  a  due  amount  of  irritation 
against  Moss  as  a  man  without  capital,  who,  if 
murrain  and  blight  were  abroad,  was  sure  to  have 
his  share  of  them,  and  who,  the  more  you  tried  to 
help  him  out  of  the  mud,  would  sink  the  further 
in.  It  would  do  him  good  rather  than  harm,  now,  if 
he  were  obliged  to  raise  this  three  hundred  pounds: 
it  would  make  him  look  about  him  better,  and  not 
act  so  foolishly  about  his-  wool  this  year  as  he  did 
the  last :  in  fact,  Mr.  Tulliver  had  been  too  easy 
with  his  brother-in-law,  and  because  he  had  let 
the  interest  run  on  for  two  years,  Moss  was  likely 
enough  to  think  that  he  should  never  be  troubled 
about  the  principal.  But  Mr.  Tulliver  was  deter- 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  107 

mined  not  to  encourage  such  shuffling  people  any 
longer ;  and  a  ride  alung  the  Basset  lanes  was  not 
likely  to  enervate  a  man's  resolution  by  softening 
his  temper.  The  deep-trodden  hoof-marks,  made  in 
the  muddiest  days  of  winter,  gave  him  a  shake  now 
and  then  which  suggested  a  rash  but  stimulating 
snarl  at  the  father  of  lawyers,  who,  whether  by 
means  of  his  hoof  or  otherwise,  had  doubtless  some- 
thing to  do  with  this  state  of  the  roads;  and  the 
abundance  of  foul  land  and  neglected  fences  that 
met  his  eye,  though  they  made  no  part  of  his 
brother  Moss's  farm,  strongly  contributed  to  his 
dissatisfaction  with  that  unlucky  agriculturist.  If 
this  was  n't  Moss's  fallow,  it  might  have  been : 
Basset  was  all  alike ;  it  was  a  beggarly  parish  in 
Mr.  Tulliver's  opinion,  and  his  opinion  was  cer- 
tainly not  groundless.  Basset  had  a  poor  soil,  poor 
roads,  a  poor  non-resident  landlord,  a  poor  non- 
resident vicar,  and  rather  less  than  half  a  curate, 
also  poor.  If  any  one  strongly  impressed  with  the 
power  of  the  human  mind  to  triumph  over  circum- 
stances, will  contend  that  the  parishioners  of  Basset 
might  nevertheless  have  been  a  very  superior  class 
of  people,  I  have  nothing  to  urge  against  that  ab- 
stract proposition;  I  only  know  that,  in  point  of 
fact,  the  Basset  mind  was  in  strict  keeping  with  its 
circumstances.  The  muddy  lanes,  green  or  clayey, 
that  seemed  to  the  unaccustomed  eye  to  lead  no- 
where but  into  each  other,  did  really  lead,  with 
patience,  to  a  distant  high-road;  but  there  were 
many  feet  in  Basset  which  they  led  more  frequently 
to  a  centre  of  dissipation,  spoken  of  formerly  as  the 
"Markis  o'  Granby/'  but  among  intimates  as  "Dicki- 
son's."  A  large  low  room  with  a  sanded  floor,  a 
cold  scent  of  tobacco,  modified  by  undetected  beer- 


io8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

dregs,  Mr.  Dickison  leaning  against  the  doorpost 
with  a  melancholy  pimpled  face,  looking  as  irrele- 
vant to  the  daylight  as  a  last  night's  guttered  candle, 
—  all  this  may  not  seem  a  very  seductive  form  of 
temptation ;  but  the  majority  of  men  in  Basset 
found  it  fatally  alluring  when  encountered  on  their 
road  towards  four  o'clock  on  a  wintry  afternoon ; 
and  if  any  wife  in  Basset  wished  to  indicate  that 
her  husband  was  not  a  pleasure -seeking  man,  she 
could  hardly  do  it  more  emphatically  than  by  say- 
ing that  he  did  n't  spend  a  shilling  at  Dickison's 
from  one  Whitsuntide  to  another.  Mrs.  Moss  had 
said  so  of  her  husband  more  than  once,  when  her 
brother  was  in  a  mood  to  find  fault  with  him,  as  he 
certainly  was  to-day.  And  nothing  could  be  less 
pacifying  to  Mr.  Tulliver  than  the  behaviour  of  the 
farmyard  gate,  which  he  no  sooner  attempted  to 
push  open  with  his  riding-stick  than  it  acted  as 
gates  without  the  upper  hinge  are  known  to  do,  to 
the  peril  of  shins,  whether  equine  or  human.  He 
was  about  to  get  down  and  lead  his  horse  through 
the  damp  dirt  of  the  hollow  farmyard,  shadowed 
drearily  by  the  large  half-timbered  buildings,  up  to 
the  long  line  of  tumble-down  dwelling-houses  stand- 
ing on  a  raised  causeway ;  but  the  timely  appear- 
ance of  a  cowboy  saved  him  that  frustration  of  a 
plan  he  had  determined  on,  —  namely,  not  to  get 
down  from  his  horse  during  this  visit.  If  a  man 
means  to  be  hard,  let  him  keep  in  his  saddle  and 
speak  from  that  height,  above  the  level  of  pleading 
eyes,  and  with  the  command  of  a  distant  horizon. 
Mrs.  Moss  heard  the  sound  of  the  horse's  feet,  and 
when  her  brother  rode  up,  was  already  outside  the 
kitchen  door,  with  a  half-weary  smile  on  her  face, 
and  a  black-eyed  baby  in  her  arms.  Mrs.  Moss's 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  109 

face  bore  a  faded  resemblance  to  her  brother's; 
baby's  little  fat  hand,  pressed  against  her  cheek, 
seemed  to  show  more  strikingly  that  the  cheek  was 
faded. 

"  Brother,  I  'm  glad  to  see  you,"  she  said  in  an 
affectionate  tone.  "  I  did  n't  look  for  you  to-day. 
How  do  you  do  ? " 

"  Oh  ...  pretty  well,  Mrs.  Moss  .  .  .  pretty 
well,"  answered  the  brother,  with  cool  deliberation, 
as  if  it  were  rather  too  forward  of  her  to  ask  that 
question.  She  knew  at  once  that  her  brother  was 
not  in  a  good  humour :  he  never  called  her  Mrs. 
Moss  except  when  he  was  angry  and  when  they 
were  in  company.  But  she  thought  it  was  in  the 
order  of  nature  that  people  who  were  poorly  off 
should  be  snubbed.  Mrs.  Moss  did  not  take  her 
stand  on  the  equality  of  the  human  race :  she  was 
a  patient,  prolific,  loving-hearted  woman. 

"  Your  husband  is  n't  in  the  house,  I  suppose  ?  " 
added  Mr.  Tulliver,  after  a  grave  pause,  during 
which  four  children  had  run  out,  like  chickens 
whose  mother  has  been  suddenly  in  eclipse  behind 
the  hencoop. 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Moss,  "  but  he 's  only  in  the 
potato-field  yonders.  Georgy,  run  to  the  Far  Close 
in  a  minute,  and  tell  father  your  uncle 's  come. 
You  '11  get  down,  brother,  won't  you,  and  take 
something  ? " 

"No,  no;  I  can't  get  down.  I  must  be  going 
home  again  directly,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  looking  at 
the  distance. 

"  And  how 's  Mrs.  Tulliver  and  the  children  ? " 
said  Mrs.  Moss,  humbly,  not  daring  to  press  her 
invitation. 

"  Oh  .  .  .   pretty  well.     Tom 's  going   to  a  new 


no  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

school  at  Midsummer,  —  a  deal  of  expense  to  me, 
It 's  bad  work  for  me,  lying  out  o'  my  money." 

"  I  wish  you  'd  be  so  good  as  let  the  children 
come  and  see  their  cousins  some  day.  My  little 
uns  want  to  see  their  cousin  Maggie,  so  as  never 
was.  And  me  her  godmother,  and  so  fond  of  her, 

—  there 's  nobody  'ud  make  a  bigger  fuss  with  her, 
according  to  what  they  've  got.     And  I  know  she 
likes  to  come,  for  she 's  a  loving  child ;  and  how 
quick  and  clever  she  is,  to  be  sure ! " 

If  Mrs.  Moss  had  been  one  of  the  most  astute 
women  in  the  world,  instead  of  being  one  of  the 
simplest,  she  could  have  thought  of  nothing  more 
likely  to  propitiate  her  brother  than  this  praise  of 
Maggie.  He  seldom  found  any  one  volunteering 
praise  of  "  the  little  wench ; "  it  was  usually  left  en- 
tirely to  himself  to  insist  on  her  merits.  But 
Maggie  always  appeared  in  the  most  amiable  light  at 
her  aunt  Moss's  :  it  was  her  Alsatia,  where  she  was 
out  of  the  reach  of  law,  —  if  she  upset  anything, 
dirtied  her  shoes,  or  tore  her  frock,  these  things  were 
matters  of  course  at  her  aunt  Moss's.  In  spite  of 
himself,  Mr..  Tulliver's  eyes  got  milder,  and  he  did 
not  look  away  from  his  sister,  as  he  said,  — 

"  Ay :  she 's  fonder  o'  you  than  o'  the  other 
aunts,  I  think.  She  takes  after  our  family :  not 
a  bit  of  her  mother  's  in  her." 

"  Moss  says  she 's  just  like  what  I  used  to  be," 
said  Mrs.  Moss,  "  though  I  was  never  so  quick  and 
fond  o'  the  books.  But  I  think  my  Lizzy  's  like  her, 

—  she 's  sharp.     Come  here,  Lizzy,  my  dear,  and  let 
your   uncle  see   you :  he   hardly  knows   you,  you 
grow  so  fast." 

Lizzy,  a  black-eyed  child  of  seven,  looked  very 
shy  when  her  mother  drew  her  forward,  for  the 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  in 

small  Mosses  were  much  in  awe  of  their  uncle  from 
Dorlcote  Mill.  She  was  inferior  enough  to  Maggie 
in  fire  and  strength  of  expression,  to  make  the 
resemblance  between  the  two  entirely  flattering  to 
Mr.  Tulliver's  fatherly  love. 

"  Ay,  they  're  a  bit  alike,"  he  said,  looking  kindly 
at  the  little  figure  in  the  soiled  pinafore.  "  They 
both  take  after  our  mother.  You  've  got  enough  o' 
gells,  Gritty,"  he  added,  in  a  tone  half  compassion- 
ate, half  reproachful. 

"  Four  of  'em,  bless  'em,"  said  Mrs.  Moss,  with  a 
sigh,  stroking  Lizzy's  hair  on  each  side  of  her  fore- 
head ;  "  as  many  as  there  's  boys.  They  Ve  got  a 
brother  apiece." 

"  Ah,  but  they  must  turn  out  and  fend  for  them- 
selves," said  Mr.  Tulliver,  feeling  that  his  severity 
was  relaxing,  and  trying  to  brace  it  by  throwing  out 
a  wholesome  hint.  "  They  must  n't  look  to  hang- 
ing on  their  brothers." 

"  No ;  but  I  hope  their  brothers  'ull  love  the  poor 
things,  and  remember  they  came  o'  one  father  and 
mother :  the  lads  'ull  never  be  the  poorer  for  that," 
said  Mrs.  Moss,  flashing  out  with  hurried  timidity, 
like  a  half-smothered  fire. 

Mr.  Tulliver  gave  his  horse  a  little  stroke  on  the 
flank,  then  checked  it,  and  said  angrily,  "  Stand 
still  with  you  ! "  much  to  the  astonishment  of  that 
innocent  animal. 

"  And  the  more  there  is  of  'em,  the  more  they 
must  love  one  another,"  Mrs.  Moss  went  on,  look- 
ing at  her  children  with  a  didactic  purpose.  But 
she  turned  towards  her  brother  again  to  say,  ''  Not 
but  what  I  hope  your  boy  'ull  allays  be  good  to  his 
sister,  though  there  's  but  two  of  'em,  like  you  and 
me,  brother." 


ii2  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

That  arrow  went  straight  to  Mr.  Tulliver's 
heart.  He  had  not  a  rapid  imagination,  but  the 
thought  of  Maggie  was  very  near  to  him,  and  he 
was  not  long  in  seeing  his  relation  to  his  own  sister 
side  by  side  with  Tom's  relation  to  Maggie.  Would 
the  little  wench  ever  be  poorly  off',  and  Tom  rather 
hard  upon  her  ? 

"Ay,  ay,  Gritty/'  said  the  miller,  with  a  new 
softness  in  his  tone ;  "  but  I  've  allays  done  what  I 
could  for  you,"  he  added,  as  if  vindicating  himself 
from  a  reproach. 

"  I  'm  not  denying  that,  brother,  and  I  'm  noways 
ungrateful,"  said  poor  Mrs.  Moss,  too  fagged  by  toil 
and  children  to  have  strength  left  for  any  pride. 
"  But  here 's  the  father.  What  a  while  you  've 
been,  Moss  ! " 

"  While,  do  you  call  it  ? "  said  Mr.  Moss,  feeling 
out  of  breath  and  injured.  "  I  've  been  running  all 
the  way.  Won't  you  'light,  Mr.  Tulliver?" 

"  Well,  I  '11  just  get  down  and  have  a  bit  o' 
talk  with  you  in  the  garden,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
thinking  that  he  should  be  more  likely  to  show 
a  due  spirit  of  resolve  if  his  sister  were  not 
present. 

He  got  down,  and  passed  with  Mr.  Moss  into  the 
garden,  towards  an  old  yew-tree  arbour,  while  his 
sister  stood  tapping  her  baby  on  the  back,  and 
looking  wistfully  after  them. 

Their  entrance  into  the  yew-tree  arbour  surprised 
several  fowls  that  were  recreating  themselves  by 
scratching  deep  holes  in  the  dusty  ground,  and  at 
once  .took  flight  with  much  pother  and  cackling. 
Mr.  Tulliver  sat  down  on  the  bench,  and  tapping 
the  ground  curiously  here  and  there  with  his  stick, 
as  if  he  suspected  some  hollowness,  opened  the  con- 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  113 

versation  by  observing,  with  something  like  a  snail 
in  his  tone,  — 

"  Why,  you  Ve  got  wheat  again  in  that  Corner 
Close,  I  see;  and  never  a  bit  o'  dressing  on  it. 
You  '11  do  no  good  with  it  this  year." 

Mr.  Moss,  who,  when  he  married  Miss  Tulliver, 
had  been  regarded  as  the  buck  of  Basset,  now  wore 
a  beard  nearly  a  week  old,  and  had  the  depressed, 
unexpectant  air  of  a  machine-horse.  He  answered 
in  a  patient-grumbling  tone,  "  Why,  poor  farmers 
like  me  must  do  as  they  can :  they  must  leave  it  to 
them  as  have  got  money  to  play  with,  to  put  half  as 
much  into  the  ground  as  they  mean  to  get  out  of  it." 

"  I  don't  know  who  should  have  money  to  play 
with,  if  it  is  n't  them  as  can  borrow  money  without 
paying  interest,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  who  wished  to 
get  into  a  slight  quarrel;  it  was  the  most  natuial 
and  easy  introduction  to  calling  in  money. 

"  I  know  I  'm  behind  with  the  interest,"  said  Mr. 
Moss,  "but  I  was  so  unlucky  wi'  the  wool  last 
year ;  and  what  with  the  Missis  being  laid  up  so, 
things  have  gone  awk'arder  nor  usual." 

"  Ay,"  snarled  Mr.  Tulliver,  "  there 's  folks  as 
things  'ull  allays  go  awk'ard  with :  empty  sacks 
'ull  never  stand  upright." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  what  fault  you  Ve  got  to 
find  wi'  me,  Mr.  Tulliver,"  said  Mr.  Moss,  deprecat- 
ingly  ;  "  I  know  there  is  n't  a  day-labourer  works 
harder." 

"What's  the  use  o'  that,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
sharply,  "  when  a  man  marries  and 's  got  no  capital 
to  work  his  farm  but  his  wife's  bit  o'  fortin  ?  I 
was  against  it  from  the  first ;  but  you  'd  neither  of 
you  listen  to  me.  And  1  can't  lie  out  o'  my  money 
any  longer,  for  I  Ve  got  to  pay  five  hundred  o'  Mrs. 

VOL.  i.  —  8 


ii4  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Glegg's,  and  there  '11  be  Tom  an  expense  to  me,  —  I 
should  find  myself  short,  even  saying  I  'd  got  back 
all  as  is  my  own.  You  must  look  about  and  see 
how  you  can  pay  me  the  three  hundred  pound." 

"  Well,  if  that 's  what  you  mean,"  said  Mr.  Moss, 
looking  blankly  before  him,  "we'd  better  be  sold 
up,  and  ha'  done  with  it ;  I  must  part  wi'  every 
head  o'  stock  I  've  got,  to  pay  you  and  the  landlord 
too." 

Poor  relations  are  undeniably  irritating,  —  their 
existence  is  so  entirely  uncalled  for  on  our  part, 
and  they  are  almost  always  very  faulty  people. 
Mr.  Tulliver  had  succaeded  in  getting  quite  as 
much  irritated  with  Mr.  Moss  as  he  had  desired,  and 
he  was  able  to  say  angrily,  rising  from  his  seat,  — 

"Well,  you  must  do  as  you  can.  /  can't  find 
money  for  everybody  else  as  well  as  myself.  I 
must  look  to  my  own  business  and  my  own  family. 
I  can't  lie  out  o'  my  money  any  longer.  You  must 
raise  it  as  quick  as  you  can." 

Mr.  Tulliver  walked  abruptly  out  of  the  arbour  as 
he  uttered  the  last  sentence,  and,  without  looking 
round  at  Mr.  Moss,  went  on  to  the  kitchen  door, 
where  the  eldest  boy  was  holding  his  horse,  and 
his  sister  was  waiting  in  a  state  of  wondering  alarm, 
which  was  not  without  its  alleviations,  for  baby  was 
making  pleasant  gurgling  sounds,  and  performing 
a  great  deal  of  finger  practice  on  the  faded  face. 
Mrs.  Moss  had  eight  children,  but  could  never  over- 
come her  regret  that  the  twins  had  not  lived.  Mr. 
Moss  thought  their  removal  was  not  without  its 
consolations.  "  Won't  you  come  in,  brother  ? "  she 
said,  looking  anxiously  at  her  husband,  who  was 
walking  slowly  up,  while  Mr.  Tulliver  had  his  foot 
already  in  the  stirrup. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  115 

"No,  no;  good-by,"  said  he,  turning  his  horse's 
head,  and  riding  away. 

No  man  could  feel  more  resolute  till  he  got  out- 
side the  yard-gate,  and  a  little  way  along  the  deep- 
rutted  lane  ;  but  before  he  reached  the  next  turning, 
which  would  take  him  out  of  sight  of  the  dilapi- 
dated farm-buildings,  he  appeared  to  be  smitten 
by  some  sudden  thought.  He  checked  his  horse, 
and  made  it  stand  still  in  the  same  spot  for  two  or 
three  minutes,  during  which  he  turned  his  head 
from  side  to  side  in  a  melancholy  way,  as  if  he  were 
looking  at  some  painful  object  on  more  sides  than 
one.  Evidently,  -after  his  fit  of  promptitude,  Mr. 
Tulliver  was  relapsing  into  the  sense  that  this  is  a 
puzzling  world.  He  turned  his  horse,  and  rode 
slowly  back,  giving  vent  to  the  climax  of  feeling 
which  had  determined  this  movement  by  saying 
aloud  as  he  struck  his  horse,  "  Poor  little  wench  ! 
she  '11  have  nobody  but  Tom,  belike,  when  I  'm  gone." 

Mr.  Tulliver's  return  into  the  yard  was  descried 
by  several  young  Mosses,  who  immediately  ran  in 
with  the  exciting  news  to  their  mother,  so  that  Mrs. 
Moss  was  again  on  the  door-step  when  her  brother 
rode  up.  She  had  been  crying,  but  was  rocking 
baby  to  sleep  in  her  arms  now,  and  made  no  osten- 
tatious show  of  sorrow  as  her  brother  looked  at  her, 
but  merely  said,  — 

"  The  father 's  gone  to  the  field  again,  if  you  want 
him,  brother." 

"No,  Gritty,  no,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  in  a  gentle 
tone.  "  Don't  you  fret  —  that 's  all  —  I  '11  make  a 
shift  without  the  money  a  bit  —  only  you  must 
be  as  clever  and  contriving  as  you  can." 

Mrs.  Moss's  tears  came  again  at  this  unexpected 
kindness,  and  she  could  say  nothing. 


ri6  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Come,  come  !  —  the  little  wench  shall  come  and 
see  you.  I  'il  bring  her  and  Tom  some  day  before 
he  goes  to  school.  You  must  n't  fret  ...  1 11 
allays  be  a  good  brother  to  you." 

"  Thank  you  for  that  word,  brother,"  said  Mrs. 
Moss,  drying  her  tears ;  then  turning  to  Lizzy,  she 
said,  "Kun  now,  and  fetch  the  coloured  egg  for 
cousin  Maggie."  Lizzy  ran  in,  and  quickly  re- 
appeared with  a  small  paper  parcel. 

"  It 's  boiled  hard,  brother,  and  coloured  with 
thrums,  —  very  pretty:  it  was  done  o'  purpose  for 
Maggie.  Will  you  please  to  carry  it  in  your 
pocket  ? " 

"  Ay,  ay,"  said-  Mr.  Tulliver,  putting  it  carefully 
in  his  side-pocket.  "  Good-by." 

And  so  the  respectable  miller  returned  along  the 
Basset  lanes  rather  more  puzzled  than  before  as  to 
ways  and  means,  but  still  with  the  sense  of  a 
danger  escaped.  It  had  come  across  his  mind  that 
if  he  were  hard  upon  his  sister,  it  might  somehow 
tend  to  make  Tom  hard  upon  Maggie  at  some  dis- 
tant day,  when  her  father  was  no  longer  there  to 
take  her  part;  for  simple  people,  like  our  friend 
Mr.  Tulliver,  are  apt  to  clothe  unimpeachable  feel- 
ings in  erroneous  ideas,  and  this  was  his  confused 
way  of  explaining  to  himself  that  his  love  and 
anxiety  for  "  the  little  wench "  had  given  him  a 
new  sensibility  towards  his  sister. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

TO   GARUM   FIRS. 

WHILE  the  possible  troubles  of  Maggie's  future  were 
occupying  her  father's  mind,  she  herself  was  tast- 
ing only  the  bitterness  of  the  present.  Childhood 
has  no  forebodings  ;  but  then,  it  is  soothed  by  no 
memories  of  outlived  sorrow. 

The  fact  was,  the  day  had  begun  ill  with  Maggie. 
The  pleasure  of  having  Lucy  to  look  at,  and  the 
prospect  of  the  afternoon  visit  to  Garum  Firs,  where 
she  would  hear  uncle  Pullet's  musical  box,  had 
been  marred  as  early  as  eleven  o'clock  by  the 
advent  of  the  hairdresser  from  St.  Ogg's,  who  had 
spoken  in  the  severest  terms  of  the  condition  in 
which  he  had  found  her  hair,  holding  up  one 
jagged  lock  after  another  and  saying,  "See  here! 
tut — tut  —  tut ! "  in  a  tone  of  mingled  disgust  and 
pity,  which  to  Maggie's  imagination  was  equivalent 
to  the  strongest  expression  of  public  opinion.  Mr. 
Rappit,  the  hairdresser,  with  his  well-anointed  coro- 
nal locks  tending  wavily  upward,  like  the  simu- 
lated pyramid  of  flame  on  a  monumental  urn, 
seemed  to  her  at  that  moment  the  most  formidable 
of  her  contemporaries,  into  whose  street  at  St.  Ogg's 
she  would  carefully  refrain  from  entering  through 
the  rest  of  her  life. 

Moreover,  the  preparation  for  a  visit  being 
always  a  serious  affair  in  the  Dodson  family,  Martha 
was  enjoined  to  have  Mrs.  Tulliver's  room  ready  an 


n8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

hour  earlier  than  usual,  that  the  laying  out  of  the 
best  clothes  might  not  be  deferred  till  the  last 
moment,  as  was  sometimes  the  case  in  families  of 
lax  views,  where  the  ribbon  strings  were  never  rolled 
up,  where  there  was  little  or  \io  wrapping  in  silver 
paper,  and  where  the  sense  tha!:,  the  Sunday  clothes 
could  be  got  at  quite  easily  produced  no  shock  to 
the  mind.  Already,  at  twelve  o'clock,  Mrs.  Tulli- 
ver  had  on  her  visiting  costume,  with  a  protective 
apparatus  of  brown  holland,  as  if  she  had  been  a 
piece  of  satin  furniture  in  danger  of  flies  ;  Maggie 
was  frowning  and  twisting  her  shoulders,  that  she 
might  if  possible  shrink  away  from  the  prickliest 
of  tuckers,  while  her  mother  was  remonstrating, 
"  Don't,  Maggie,  my  dear,  —  don't  make  yourself  so 
ugly  I  "  and  Tom's  cheeks  were  looking  particularly 
brill:ant  as  a  relief  to  his  best  blue  suit,  which 
he  wore  with  becoming  calmness  ;  having,  after  a 
little  wrangling,  effected  what  was  always  the  one 
point  of  intsrest  to  him  in  his  toilet,  —  he  had 
transferred  all  the  contents  of  his  every-day  pockets 
to  those  actually  in  wear. 

As  for  Lucy,  she  was  just  as  pretty  and  neat  as 
she  had  been  yesterday:  no  accidents  ever  hap- 
pened to  her  clothes,  and  she  was  never  uncomfort- 
able in  them,  so  that  she  looked  with  wondering  pity 
at  Maggie  pouting  and  writhing  under  the  exas- 
perating tucker.  Maggie  would  certainly  have  torn 
it  off,  if  sha  had  not  been  checked  by  the  remem- 
brance of  her  recent  humiliation  about  hsr  hair;  as 
it  was,  she  confined  herself  to  fretting  and  twisting, 
and  behaving  peevishly  about  the  card-houses  which 
they  wore  allowed  to  build  till  dinner,  as  a  suitable 
amusement  for  boys  and  girls  in  their  best  clothes. 
Tom  could  build  perfect  pyramids  of  houses ;  but 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  119 

Maggie's  would  never  bear  the  laying  on  of  the 
roof :  it  was  always  so  with  the  things  that  Maggie 
made ;  and  Tom  had  deduced  the  conclusion  that 
no  girls  could  ever  make  anything.  But  it  hap- 
pened that  Lucy  proved  wonderfully  clever  at 
building :  she  handled  the  cards  so  lightly,  and 
moved  so  gently,  that  Tom  condescended  to  admire 
her  houses  as  well  as  his  own,  the  more  readily 
because  she  had  asked  him  to  teach  her.  Maggie, 
too,  would  have  admiied  Lucy's  houses,  and  would 
have  given  up  her  own  unsuccessful  building  to 
contemplate  them,  without  ill-temper,  if  her  tucker 
had  not  made  her  peevish,  and  if  Tom  had  not 
inconsiderately  laughed  when  her  houses  fell,  and 
told  her  she  was  "a  stupid." 

"  Don't  laugh  at  me,  Tom ! "  she  burst  out  an- 
grily ;  "  I  'm  not  a  stupid.  I  know  a  great  many 
things  yo'u  don't." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say,  Miss  Spitfire !  I  'd  never  be 
such  a  cross  thing  as  you,  —  making  faces  like  that. 
Lucy  does  n't  do  so.  I  like  Lucy  better  than  you  : 
/  wish  Lucy  was  my  sister." 

"Then  it's  very  wicked  and  cruel  of  you  to 
wish  so,"  said  Maggie,  starting  up  hurriedly  from 
her  place  on  the  floor,  and  upsetting  Tom's  wonder- 
ful pagoda.  She  really  did  not  mean  it,  but  the 
circumstantial  evidence  was  against  her,  and  Tom 
turned  white  with  anger,  but  said  nothing:  he 
would  have  struck  her,  only  he  knew  it  was  cow- 
ardly to  strike  a  girl,  and  Tom  Tulliver  was  quite 
determined  he  would  never  do  anything  cowardly. 

Maggie  stood  in  dismay  and  terror,  while  Tom 
got  up  from  the  floor  and  walked  away,  pale,  from 
the  scattered  ruins  of  his  pagoda,  and  Lucy  looked  on 
mutely,  like  a  kitten  pausing  from  its  lapping. 


120  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Oh,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  at  last,  going  half-way 
towards  him,  "  I  did  n't  mean  to  knock  it  down,  — • 
indeed,  indeed  I  did  n't." 

Tom  took  no  notice  of  her,  but  took,  instead,  two 
or  three  hard  peas  out  of  his  pocket,  and  shot 
them  with  his  thumb-nail  against  the  window,  — 
vaguely  at  first,  but  presently  with  the  distinct 
aim  of  hitting  a  superannuated  blue-bottle  which 
was  exposing  its  imbecility  in  the  spring  sunshine, 
clearly  against  the  views  of  Nature,  who  had  pro- 
vided Tom  and  the  peas  for  the  speedy  destruction 
of  this  weak  individual. 

Thus  the  morning  had  been  made  heavy  to 
Maggie,  and  Tom's  persistent  coldness  to  her  all 
through  their  walk  spoiled  the  fresh  air  and  sun- 
shine for  her.  He  called  Lucy  to  look  at  the  half- 
built  bird's-nest  without  caring  to  show  it  Maggie, 
and  peeled  a  willow  switch  for  Lucy  and  himself 
without  offering  one  to  Maggie.  Lucy  had  said, 
"  Maggie,  should  n't  you  like  one  ? "  but  Tom  was 
deaf. 

Still  the  sight  of  the  peacock  opportunely  spread- 
ing his  tail  on  the  stackyard  wall,  just  as  they 
reached  Garum  Firs,  was  enough  to  divert  the  mind 
temporarily  from  personal  grievances.  And  this 
was  only  the  beginning  of  beautiful  sights  at  Garum 
Firs.  All  the  farmyard  life  was  wonderful  there,  — 
bantams,  speckled  and  top-knotted  ;  Friesland  hens, 
with  their  feathers  all  turned  the  wrong  way ; 
Guinea-fowls  that  flew  and  screamed  and  dropped 
their  pretty -spotted  feathers ;  pouter-pigeons  and  a 
tame  magpie  ;  nay,  a  goat,  and  a  wonderful  brindled 
dog,  half  mastiff,  half  bull-dog,  as  large  as  a  lion. 
Then  there  were  white  railings  and  white  gates  all 
about,  and  glittering  weathercocks  of  various  de- 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  121 

sign,  and  garden-walks  paved  with  pebbles  in  beau- 
tiful patterns,  —  nothing  was  quite  common  at 
Garura  Firs ;  and  Tom  thought  that  the  unusual 
size  of  the  toads  there  was  simply  due  to  the  gen- 
eral un usualness  which  characterized  uncle  Pullet's 
possessions  as  a  gentleman  farmer.  Toads  who 
paid  rent  were  naturally  leaner.  As  for  the  house, 
it  was  not  less  remarkable ;  it  had  a  receding 
centre,  and  two  wings  with  battlemented  turrets, 
and  was  covered  with  glittering  white  stucco. 

Uncle  Pullet  had  seen  the  expected  party  ap- 
proaching from  the  window,  and  made  haste  to 
unbar  and  unchain  the  front  door,  kept  always  in 
this  fortified  condition  from  fear  of  tramps,  who 
might  be  supposed  to  know  of  the  glass-case  of 
stuffed  birds  in  the  hall,  and  to  contemplate  rushing 
in  and  carrying  it  away  on  their  heads.  Aunt 
Pullet,  too,  appeared  at  the  doorway,  and  as  soon 
as  her  sister  was  within  hearing  said,  "Stop  the 
children,  for  God's  sake,  Bessy,  —  don't  let  'em  come 
up  the  door-steps :  Sally 's  bringing  the  old  mat  and 
the  duster,  to  rub  their  shoes." 

Mrs.  Pullet's  front-door  mats  were  by  no  means 
intended  to  wipe  shoes  on  :  the  very  scraper  had  a 
deputy  to  do  its  dirty  work.  Tom  rebelled  particu- 
larly against  this  shoe-wiping,  which  he  always 
considered  in  the  light  of  an  indignity  to  his  sex. 
He  felt  it  as  the  beginning  of  the  disagreeables 
incident  to  a  visit  at  aunt  Pullet's,  where  he  had 
once  been  compelled  to  sit  with  towels  wrapped 
round  his  boots,  —  a  fact  which  may  serve  to  correct 
the  too  hasty  conclusion  that  a  visit  to  Garum  Firs 
must  have  been  a  great  treat  to  a  young  gentleman 
fond  of  animals,  —  fond,  that  is,  of  throwing  stones 
at  them. 


122  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

The  next  disagreeable  was  confined  to  his  femi- 
nine companions :  it  was  the  mounting  of  the  pol- 
ished oak  stairs,  which  had  very  handsome  carpets 
rolled  up  and  laid  by  in  a  spare  bedroom,  so  that  the 
ascent  of  these  glossy  steps  might  have  served,  in 
barbarous  times,  as  a  trial  by  ordeal  from  which 
none  but  the  most  spotless  virtue  could  have  come 
off  with  unbroken  limbs.  Sophy's  weakness  about 
these  polished  stairs  was  always  a  subject  of  bitter 
remonstrance  on  Mrs.  Gle'gg's  part ;  but  Mrs.  Tul- 
liver  ventured  on  no  comment,  only  thinking  to 
herself  it  was  a  mercy  when  she  and  the  children 
were  safe  on  the  landing. 

"  Mrs.  Gray  has  sent  home  my  new  bonnet, 
Bessy,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  in  a  pathetic  tone,  as  Mrs. 
Tulliver  adjusted  her  cap. 

"  Has  she,  sister  ? "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  an  air 
of  much  interest.  "  And  how  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  It 's  apt  to  make  a  mess  with  clothes,  taking  'em 
out  and  putting  'em  in  again,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet, 
drawing  a  bunch  of  keys  from  her  pocket  and 
looking  at  them  earnestly,  "  but  it  'ud  be  a  pity 
for  you  to  go  away  without  seeing  it.  There 's  no 
knowing  what  may  happen." 

Mrs.  Pullet  shook  her  head  slowly  at  this  last 
serious  consideration,  which  determined  her  to  single 
out  a  particular  key. 

"  I  'm  afraid  it  '11  be  troublesome  to  you  getting  it 
out,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  but  I  should  like  to 
see  what  sort  of  a  crown  she  's  made  you." 

Mrs.  Pullet  rose  with  a  melancholy  air,  and 
unlocked  one  wing  of  a  very  bright  wardrobe,  where 
you  may  have  hastily  supposed  she  would  find  the 
new  bonnet.  Not  at  all.  Such  a  supposition  could 
only  have  arisen  from  a  too  superficial  acquaintance 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  123 

with  the  habits  of  the  Dodson  family.  In  this 
wardrobe  Mrs.  Pullet  was  seeking  something  small 
enough  to  be  hidden  among  layers  of  linen,  —  it  was 
a  door-key. 

"  You  must  come  with  me  into  the  best  room," 
said  Mrs.  Pullet. 

"May  the  children  come  too,  sister?"  inquired 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  saw  that  Maggie  and  Lucy  were 
looking  rather  eager. 

"Well,"  said  aunt  Pullet,  reflectively,  "it'll 
perhaps  be  safer  for  'em  to  come,  —  they  '11  be 
touching  something  if  we  leave  'em  behind." 

So  they  went  in  procession  along  the  bright  and 
slippery  corridor,  dimly  lighted  by  the  semi-lunar 
top  of  the  window  which  rose  above  the  closed 
shutter :  it  was  really  quite  solemn.  Aunt  Pullet 
paused  and  unlocked  a  door  which  opened  on  some- 
thing still  more  solemn  than  the  passage  :  a  darkened 
room,  in  which  the  outer  light,  entering  feebly, 
showed  what  looked  like  the  corpses  of  furniture 
in  white  shrouds.  Everything  that  was  not  shrouded 
stood  with  its  legs  upwards.  Lucy  laid  hold  of 
Maggie's  frock,  and  Maggie's  heart  beat  rapidly. 

Aunt  Pullet  half  opened  the  shutter,  and  then 
unlocked  the  wardrobe,  with  a  melancholy  delib- 
erateness  which  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
funereal  solemnity  of  the  scene.  The  delicious 
scent  of  rose-leaves  that  issued  from  the  wardrobe 
made  the  process  of  taking  out  sheet  after  sheet  of 
silver  paper  quite  pleasant  to  assist  at,  though  the 
sight  of  the  bonnet  at  last  was  an  anticlimax  to 
Maggie,  who  would  have  preferred  something  more 
strikingly  preternatural.  But  few  things  could 
have  been  more  impressive  to  Mrs.  Tulliver.  She 
looked  all  round  it  in  silence  for  some  moments,  and 


124  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

then  said  emphatically,  "Well,  sister,  I'll  never 
speak  against  the  full  crowns  again ! " 

It  was  a  great  concession,  and  Mrs.  Pullet  felt  it : 
she  felt  something  was  due  to  it. 

"  You  'd  like  to  see  it  on,  sister?"  she  said  sadly. 
"  I  '11  open  the  shutter  a  bit  further." 

"Well,  if  you  don't  mind  taking  off  your  cap, 
sister,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver. 

Mrs.  Pullet  took  off  her  cap,  displaying  the  brown 
silk  scalp  with  a  jutting  promontory  of  curls  which 
was  common  to  the  more  mature  and  judicious 
women  of  those  times,  and,  placing  the  bonnet  on 
her  head,  turned  slowly  round,  like  a  draper's  lay- 
figure,  that  Mrs.  Tulliver  might  miss  no  point  of 
view. 

"  I  've  sometimes  thought  there 's  a  loop  too 
much  o'  ribbon  on  this  left  side,  sister ;  what  do 
you  think  ? "  said  Mrs.  Pullet. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  looked  earnestly  at  the  point  indi- 
cated, and  turned  her  head  on  one  side.  "  Well,  I 
think  it's  best  as  it  is;  if  you  meddled  with  it, 
sister,  you  might  repent." 

"  That 's  true,"  said  aunt  Pullet,  taking  off  the 
bonnet  and  looking  at  it  contemplatively. 

"  How  much  might  she  charge  you  for  that 
bonnet,  sister?"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  whose  rnind 
was  actively  engaged  on  the  possibility  of  getting 
a  humble  imitation  of  this  chef-d'oeuvre  made  from 
a  piece  of  silk  she  had  at  home. 

Mrs.  Pullet  screwed  up  her  mouth,  and  shook  her 
head,  and  then  whispered,  "  Pullet  pays  for  it :  he 
said  I  was  to  have  the  best  bonnet  at  Garum 
Church,  let  the  next  best  be  whose  it  would." 

She  began  slowly  to  adjust  the  trimmings,  in 
preparation  for  returning  it  to  its  place  in  the 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  125 

wardrobe,  and  her  thoughts  seemed  to  have  taken 
a  melancholy  turn,  for  she  shook  her  head. 

"  Ah,"  she  said  at  last,  "  I  may  never  wear  it 
twice,  sister  ;  who  knows  ? " 

"  Don't  talk  o'  that,  sister,"  answered  Mrs.  Tulliver. 
"  I  hope  you  '11  have  your  health  this  summer." 

"  Ah !  but  there  may  come  a  death  in  the  family, 
as  there  did  soon  after  I  had  my  green  satin  bonnet. 
Cousin  Abbott  may  go,  and  we  can't  think  o'  wearing 
crape  less  nor  half  a  year  for  him." 

"That  would  be  unlucky,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver, 
entering  thoroughly  into  the  possibility  of  an  inop- 
portune decease.  "  There 's  never  so  much  pleasure 
i'  wearing  a  bonnet  the  second  year,  especially  when 
the  crowns  are  so  chancy,  —  never  two  summers 
alike." 

"Ah,  it 's  the  way  i'  this  world,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet, 
returning  the  bonnet  to  the  wardrobe,  and  locking 
it  up.  She  maintained  a  silence  characterized  by 
head-shaking,  until  they  had  all  issued  from  the 
solemn  chamber  and  were  in  her  own  room  again. 
Then,  beginning  to  cry,  she  said,  "  Sister,  if  you 
should  never  see  that  bonnet  again  till  I  'm  dead 
and  gone,  you  11  remember  I  showed  it  you  this 
day." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  felt  that  she  ought  to  be  affected, 
but  she  was  a  woman  of  sparse  tears,  stout  and 
healthy,  —  she  could  n't  cry  so  much  as  her  sister 
Pullet  did,  and  had  often  felt  her  deficiency  at 
funerals.  Her  effort  to  bring  tears  into  her  eyes 
issued  in  an  odd  contraction  of  her  face.  Maggie, 
looking  on  attentively,  felt  that  there  was  some 
painful  mystery  about  her  aunt's  bonnet  which  she 
was  considered  too  young  to  understand:  indig- 
nantly conscious,  all  the  while,  that  she  could  have 


126  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

understood  that,  as  well  as  everything  else,  if  she 
had  been  taken  into  confidence. 

When  they  went  down,  uncle  Pullet  observed, 
with  some  acumen,  that  he  reckoned  the  missis  had 
been  showing  her  bonnet,  —  that  was  what  had 
made  them  so  long  upstairs.  With  Tom  the  inter- 
val had  seemed  still  longer,  for  he  had  been  seated 
in  irksome  constraint  on  the  edge  of  a  sofa  directly 
opposite  his  uncle  Pullet,  who  regarded  him  with 
twinkling  gray  eyes,  and  occasionally  addressed 
him  as  "Young  sir." 

"  Well,  young  sir,  what  do  you  learn  at  school  ?  " 
was  a  standing  question  with  uncle  Pullet ;  where- 
upon Tom  always  looked  sheepish,  rubbed  his  hands 
across  his  face,  and  answered,  "  I  don't  know."  It 
was  altogether  so  embarrassing  to  be  seated  tetc-&- 
tete  with  uncle  Pullet,  that  Tom  could  not  even 
look  at  the  prints  on  the  walls,  or  the  fly-cages,  or 
the  wonderful  flower-pots  ;  he  saw  nothing  but  his 
uncle's  gaiters.  Not  that  Tom  was  in  awe  of  his 
uncle's  mental  superiority  ;  indeed,  he  had  made  up 
his  mind  that  he  did  n't  want  to  be  a  gentleman 
farmer,  because  he  should  n't  like  to  be  such  a  thin- 
legged  silly  fellow  as  his  uncle  Pullet,  —  a  molly- 
coddle, in  fact.  A  boy's  sheepishness  is  by  no  means 
a  sign  of  overmastering  reverence ;  and  while  you 
are  making  encouraging  advances  to  him  under  the 
idea  that  he  is  overwhelmed  by  a  sense  of  your  a<;o 
and  wisdom,  ten  to  one  he  is  thinking  you  extremely 
queer.  The  only  consolation  T  can  suggest  to  you 
is  that  the  Greek  boys  probably  thought  the  same 
of  Aristotle.  It  is  only  when  you  have  mastered  a 
restive  horse,  or  thrashed  a  drayman,  or  have  got  a 
gun  in  your  hand,  that  these  shy  juniors  feel  you  to 
be  a  truly  admirable  and  enviable  character.  At  least, 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  127 

T  am  quite  sure  of  Tom  Tulliver's  sentiments  on 
these  points.  In  very  tender  years,  when  he  still 
wore  a  lace  border  under  his  outdoor  cap,  he  was 
often  observed  peeping  through  the  bars  of  a  gate, 
and  making  minatory  gestures  with  his  small  fore- 
finger, while  he  scolded  the  sheep  with  an  inar- 
ticulate burr,  intended  to  strike  terror  into  their 
astonished  minds  :  indicating  thus  early  that  desiie 
for  mastery  over  the  inferior  animals,  wild  and 
domestic,  including  cockchafers,  neighbours'  dogs, 
and  small  sisters,  which  in  all  ages  has-been  an 
attribute  of  so  much  promise  for  the  fortunes  of 
our  race.  Now  .Mr.  Pullet  never  rode  anything 
taller  than  a  low  pony,  and  was  the  least  predatory 
of  men,  considering  firearms  dangerous,  as  apt  to  go 
off  of  themselves  by  nobody's  particular  desire.  So 
that  Tom  was  not  without  strong  reasons  when,  in 
confidential  talk  with  a  chum,  he  had  described  uncle 
Pullet  as  a  nincompoop,  taking  care  at  the  same  time 
to  observe  that  he  was  a  very  "  rich  fellow." 

The  only  alleviating  circumstance  in  a  tete-a-tete 
with  uncle  Pullet  was  that  he  kept  a  variety  of 
lozenges  and  peppermint-drops  about  his  person, 
and  when  at  a  loss  for  conversation,  he  filled  up 
the  void  by  proposing  a  mutual  solace  of  this  kind. 

"  Do  you  like  peppermints,  young  sir  ? "  required 
only  a  tacit  answer  when  it  was  accompanied  by  a 
presentation  of  the  article  in  question. 

The  appearance  of  the  little  girls  suggested  to 
uncle  Pullet  the  further  solace  of  small  sweet-cakes, 
of  which  he  also  kept  a  stock  under  lock  and  key 
for  his  own  private  eating  on  wet  days ;  but  the 
three  children  had  no  sooner  got  the  tempting  deli- 
cacy between  their  fingers,  than  aunt  Pullet  desired 
them  to  abstain  from  eating  it  till  the  tray  and  the 


128  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

plates  came,  since  with  those  crisp  cakes  they 
would  make  the  floor  "  all  over "  crumbs.  Lucy 
did  n't  mind  that  much,  for  the  cake  was  so  pretty, 
she  thought  it  was  rather  a  pity  to  eat  it ;  but  Tom, 
watching  his  opportunity  while  the  elders  were 
talking,  hastily  stowed  it  in  his  mouth  at  two  bites, 
and  chewed  it  furtively.  As  for  Maggie,  becoming 
fascinated,  as  usual,  by  a  print  of  Ulysses  and 
Nausicaa,  which  uncle  Pullet  had  bought  as  a 
"  pretty  Scripture  thing,"  she  presently  let  fall  her 
cake,  and  in  an  unlucky  movement  crushed  it  be- 
neath her  foot,  —  a  source  of  so  much  agitation  to 
aunt  Pullet  and  conscious  disgrace  to  Maggie,  that 
she  began  to  despair  of  hearing  the  musical  snuff- 
box to-day,  till,  after  some  reflection,  it  occurred  to 
her  that  Lucy  was  in  high  favour  enough  to  venture 
on  asking  for  a  tune.  So  she  whispered  to  Lucy ; 
and  Lucy,  who  always  did  what  she  was  desired  to 
do,  went  up  quietly  to  her  uncle's  knee,  and,  blush- 
ing all  over  her  neck  while  she  fingered  her  necklace, 
said,  "  Will  you  please  play  us  a  tune,  uncle  ?  " 

Lucy  thought  it  was  by  reason  of  some  excep- 
tional talent  in  uncle  Pullet  that  the  snuff-box 
played  such  beautiful  tunes,  and  indeed  the  thing 
was  viewed  in  that  light  by  the  majority  of  his 
neighbours  in  Garum.  Mr.  Pullet  had  bought  the 
box,  to  b3gin  with,  and  he  understood  winding  it 
up,  and  knew  which  tune  it  was  going  to  play  be- 
forehand ;  altogether,  the  possession  of  this  unique 
"  piece  of  music "  was  a  proof  that  Mr.  Pullet's 
character  was  not  of  that  entire  nullity  which 
might  otherwise  have  been  attributed  to  it.  But 
uncle  Pullet,  when  entreated  to  exhibit  his  accom- 
plishment, never  depreciated  it  by  a  too  ready  con- 
sent. "  We  '11  sue  about  it,"  was  the  answer  he 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  129 

always  gave,  carefully  abstaining  from  any  sign  of 
compliance  till  a  suitable  number  of  minutes  had 
passed.  Uncle  Pullet  had  a  programme  for  all 
great  social  occasions,  and  in  this  way  fenced  him- 
self in  from  much  painful  confusion  and  perplexing 
freedom  of  will. 

Perhaps  the  suspense  did  heighten  Maggie's  en- 
joyment when  the  fairy  tune  began  :  for  the  first 
time  she  quite  forgot  that  she  had  a  load  on  her 
mind,  —  that  Tom  was  angry  with  her  ;  and  by  the 
time  "  Hush,  ye  pretty  warbling  choir,"  had  been 
played,  her  face  wore  that  bright  look  of  happiness, 
while  she  sat  immovable  with  her  hands  clasped, 
which  sometimes  comforted  her  mother  with  the 
sense  that  Maggie  could  look  pretty  now  and  then, 
in  spite  of  her  brown  skin.  But  when  the  magic 
music  ceased,  she  jumped  up,  and,  running  towards 
Tom,  put  her  arm  round  his  neck  and  said,  "  Oh, 
Tom,  is  n't  it  pretty  ?  " 

Lest  you  should  think  it  showed  a  revolting 
insensibility  in  Tom  that  he  felt  any  new  anger 
towards  Maggie  for  this  uncalled-for  and,  to  him, 
inexplicable  caress,  I  must  tell  you  that  he  had 
his  glass  of  cowslip  wine  in  his  hand,  and  that  she 
jerked  him  so  as  to  make  him  spill  half  of  it.  He 
must  have  been  an  extreme  milksop  not  to  say 
angrily,  "  Look  there  now ! "  especially  when  his 
resentment  was  sanctioned,  as  it  was,  by  general 
disapprobation  of  Maggie's  behaviour. 

"  Why  don't  you  sit  still,  Maggie  ? "  her  mother 
said  peevishly. 

"  Little  gells  must  n't  come  to  see  me  if  they 
behave  in  that  way,''  said  aunt  Pullet. 

"Why,  you're  too  rough,  little  miss,"  said  uncle 
Pullet. 

VOL.  I.  —  9 


i3o  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Poor  Maggie  sat  down  again,  with  the  music  all 
chafed  out  of  her  soul,  and  the  seven  small  demons 
all  in  again. 

Mrs.  Tulliver,  foreseeing  nothing  but  misbehaviour 
while  the  children  remained  indoors,  took  an  early 
opportunity  of  suggesting  that,  now  they  were 
rested  after  their  walk,  they  might  go  and  play  out 
of  doors ;  and  aunt  Pullet  gave  permission,  only 
enjoining  them  not  to  go  off  the  paved  walks  in  the 
garden,  and  if  they  wanted  to  see  the  poultry  fed, 
to  view  them  from  a  distance  on  the  horse-block ; 
a  restriction  which  had  been  imposed  ever  since 
Tom  had  been  found  guilty  of  running  after  the 
peacock,  with  an  illusory  idea  that  fright  would 
make  one  of  its  feathers  drop  off. 

Mrs.  Tulliver's  thoughts  had  been  temporarily 
diverted  from  the  quarrel  with  Mrs.  Glegg  by  milli- 
nery and  maternal  cares,  but  now  the  great  theme 
of  the  bonnet  was  thrown  into  perspective,  and  the 
children  were  out  of  the  way,  yesterday's  anxieties 
recurred. 

"  It  weighs  on  my  mind  so  as  never  was,"  she 
said,  by  way  of  opening  the  subject,  "  sister  Glegg's 
leaving  the  house  in  that  way.  I'm  sure  I'd  no 
wish  t'  offend  a  sister." 

"  Ah,"  said  aunt  Pullet,  "  there  's  no  accounting 
for  what  Jane  'ull  do.  I  would  n't  speak  of  it  out 
o'  the  family  —  if  it  was  n't  to  Dr.  Turnbull ;  but 
it 's  my  belief  Jane  lives  too  low.  I  Ve  said  so  to 
Pullet  often  and  often,  and  he  knows  it." 

"  Why,  you  said  so  last  Monday  was  a  week, 
when  we  came  away  from  drinking  tea  with  'ern," 
said  Mr.  Pullet,  beginning  to  nurse  his  knee  and 
shelter  it  with  his  pocket-handkerchief,  as  was  his 
way  when  the  conversation  took  an  interesting  turn. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  131 

"  Very  like  I  did,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  "  for  you 
remember  when  I  said  things  better  than  1  can 
remember  myself.  He  's  got  a  wonderful  memory, 
Pullet  has,"  she  continued,  looking  pathetically  at 
her  sister.  "  I  should  be  poorly  off  if  he  was  to 
have  a  stroke,  for  he  always  remembers  when  I  Ve 
got  to  take  my  doctor's  stuff,  —  and  I  'm  taking 
three  sorts  now." 

"  There  's  the  '  pills  as  before  '  every  other  night, 
and  the  new  drops  at  eleven  and  four,  and  the 
'fervescing  mixture  '  when  agreeable,' "  rehearsed 
Mr.  Pullet,  with  a  punctuation  determined  by  a 
lozenge  on  his  tongue. 

"  Ah,  perhaps  it  'ud  be  better  for  sister  Glegg  if 
she  'd  go  to  the  doctor  sometimes,  instead  o'  chew- 
ing Turkey  rhubarb  whenever  there 's  anything  the 
matter  with  her,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  naturally 
saw  the  wide  subject  of  medicine  chiefly  in  relation 
to  Mrs.  Glegg. 

"  It 's  dreadful  to  think  on,"  said  aunt  Pullet, 
raising  her  hands  and  letting  them  fall  again, 
"  people  playing  with  their  own  insides  in  that  way  ! 
And  it 's  flying  i'  the  face  o'  Providence ;  for  what 
are  the  doctors  for,  if  we  are  n't  to  call  'em  in  ? 
And  when  folks  have  got  the  money  to  pay  for  a 
doctor,  it  is  n't  respectable,  as  I  Ve  told  Jane  many 
a  time.  I  'm  ashamed  of  acquaintance  knowing  it." 

"  Well,  we  Ve  no  call  to  be  ashamed,"  said  Mr. 
Pullet,  "  for  Dr.  Turnbull  has  n't  got  such  another 
patient  as  you  i'  this  parish,  now  old  Mrs.  Sutton  's 
gone." 

"  Pullet  keeps  all  my  physic-bottles  —  did  you 
know,  Bessy  ? "  said  Mrs.  Pullet.  "  He  won't  have 
one  sold.  He  says  it's  nothing  but  right  folks 
should  see  'em  when  I  'm  gone.  They  fill  two  d 


132  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  long  store-room  shelves  a'ready  —  but,"  she 
added,  beginning  to  cry  a  little,  "  it 's  well  if  they 
ever  fill  three.  I  may  go  before  I  Ve  made  up  the 
dozen  o'  these  last  sizes.  The  pill-boxes  are  in  the 
closet  in  my  room,  —  you  '11  remember  that,  sister,  — 
but  there  's  nothing  to  show  for  the  boluses,  if  it 
is  n't  the  bills." 

"  Don't  talk  o'  your  going,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Tul- 
liver ;  "  I  should  have  nobody  to  stand  between  me 
and  sister  Glegg  if  you  was  gone.  And  there 's 
nobody  but  you  can  get  her  to  make  it  up  with  Mr. 
Tulliver,  for  sister  Deane  's  never  o'  my  side,  and  if 
she  was,  it 's  not  to  be  looked  for  as  she  can  speak 
like  them  as  have  got  an  independent  fortin." 

"  Well,  your  husband  is  awk'ard,  you  know, 
Bessy,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  good-naturedly  ready  to 
use  her  deep  depression  on  her  sister's  account  as 
well  as  her  own.  "  He  's  never  behaved  quite  so 
pretty  to  our  family  as  he  should  do,  and  the  chil- 
dren take  after  him,  —  the  boy  's  very  mischievous, 
and  runs  away  from  his  aunts  and  uncles,  and  the 
gell  's  rude  and  brown.  It 's  your  bad-luck,  and 
I  'm  sorry  for  you,  Bessy  ;  for  you  was  allays  my 
favourite  sister,  and  we  allays  liked  the  same 
patterns." 

"  I  know  Tulliver  's  hasty,  and  says  odd  things," 
said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  wiping  away  one  small  tear  from 
the  corner  of  her  eye ;  "  but  I  'in  sure  he 's  never 
been  the  man,  since  he  married  me,  to  object  to  my 
making  the  friends  o'  my  side  o'  the  family  welcome 
to  the  house." 

"  /  don't  want  to  make  the  worst  of  you,  Bessy," 
said  Mrs.  Pullet,  compassionately,  "  for  I  doubt 
you  '11  have  trouble  enough  without  that ;  and  your 
husband's  got  that  poor  sister  and  her  children 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  133 

hanging  on  him,  —  and  so  given  to  lawing,  they  say. 
I  doubt  he'll  leave  you  poorly  off  when  he  dies. 
Not  as  I  'd  have  it  said  out  o'  the  family." 

This  view  of  her  position  was  naturally  far  from 
cheering  to  Mrs.  Tulliver.  Her  imagination  was 
not  easily  acted  on  ;  but  she  could  not  help  thinking 
that  her  case  was  a  hard  one,  since  it  appeared  that 
other  people  thought  it  hard. 

"  I  'in  sure,  sister,  I  can't  help  myself,"  she  said, 
urged  by  the  fear  lest  her  anticipated  misfortunes 
might  be  held  retributive,  to  take  a  comprehensive 
review  of  her  past  conduct.  "  There  's  no  woman 
strives  more  for'  her  children ;  and  I  'm  sure,  at 
scouring-time  this  Lady  Day  as  I've  had  all  the 
bed-hangings  taken  down,  I  did  as  much  as  the  two 
gells  put  together;  and  there's  this  last  elder- 
flower  wine  I  Ve  made  —  beautiful !  I  allays  offer 
it  along  with  the  sherry,  though  sister  Glegg  will 
have  it  I  'm  so  extravagant ;  and  as  for  liking  to 
have  my  clothes  tidy,  and  not  go  a  fright  about 
the  house,  there 's  nobody  in  the  parish  can  say 
anything  against  me  in  respect  o'  backbiting  and 
making  mischief,  for  I  don't  wish  anybody  any 
harm  ;  and  nobody  loses  by  sending  me  a  pork-pie, 
for  my  pies  are  fit  to  show  with  the  best  o'  my 
neighbours' ;  and  the  linen  's  so  in  order,  as  if  I  was 
to  die  to-morrow  I  should  n't  be  ashamed.  A  woman 
can  do  no  more  nor  she  can." 

"  But  it 's  all  o'  no  use,  you  know,  Bessy,"  said 
Mrs.  Pullet,  holding  her  head  on  one  side,  and  fixing 
her  eyes  pathetically  on  her  sister,  "  if  your  husband 
makes  away  with  his  money.  Not  but  what  if  you 
was  sold  up,  and  other  folks  bought  your  furniture, 
it 's  a  comfort  to  think  as  you  've  kept  it  well 
rubbed.  And  there  's  the  linen,  with  your  maiden 


r34  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

rmrk  on,  might  go  all  over  the  country.  It  'ud  be 
a  sad  pity  for  our  family."  Mrs.  Pullet  shook  her 
head  slowly. 

"  But  what  can  I  do,  sister  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver. 
"  Mr.  Tulliver  's  not  a  man  to  be  dictated  to,  —  not 
if  I  was  to  go  to  the  parson,  and  get  by  heart  what 
I  should  tell  my  husband  for  the  best.  And  I  'm 
sure  I  don't  pretend  to  know  anything  about  putting 
out  money  and  all  that.  I  could  never  see  into 
men's  business  as  sister  Glegg  does." 

"  Well,  you  're  like  me  in  that,  Bessy,"  said  Mrs. 
Pullet ;  "  and  I  think  it  'ud  be  a  deal  more  becom- 
ing o'  Jane  if  she'd  have  that  pier-glass  rubbed 
oftener  —  there  was  ever  so  many  spots  on  it  last 
week  —  instead  o'  dictating  to  folks  as  have  more 
comings  in  than  she  ever  had,  and  telling  'em  what 
they  've  to  do  with  their  money.  But  Jane  and  me 
were  allays  contrairy ;  she  would  have  striped  things, 
and  I  like  spots.  You  like  a  spot  too,  Bessy :  we 
allays  hung  together  i'  that." 

"  Yes,  Sophy,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  I  remember 
our  having  a  blue  ground  wi'.h  a  white  spot  bo'h 
alike,  —  I  've  got  a  bit  in  a  bed-quilt  now  ;  and  if 
you  would  but  go  and  see  sister  Glegg,  and  persuade 
her  to  make  it  up  with  Tulliver,  I  should  take  it 
very  kind  of  you.  You  was  allays  a  good  sister  to 
me." 

"  But  the  right  thing  'ud  be  for  Tulliver  to  go  and 
make  it  up  with  her  himself,  and  say  he  was  sorry 
for  speaking  so  rash.  If  he  's  borrowed  money  of 
her,  he  should  n't  be  above  that,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet, 
whose  partiality  did  not  blind  her  to  principles :  she 
did  not  forget  what  was  due  to  people  of  indepen- 
dent fortune. 

"  It 's   no   use   talking  o'  that,"  said  poor   MrC. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  135 

Tulliver,  almost  peevishly.  "  If  I  was  to  go  down 
on  my  bare  knees  on  the  gravel  to  Tulliver,  he  'd 
never  humble  himself." 

"  Well,  you  can't  expect  me  to  persuade  Jane  to 
beg  pardon,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet.  "Her  temper's  be- 
yond everything ;  it 's  well  if  it  does  n't  carry  her 
off  her  mind,  though  there  never  was  any  of  our 
family  went  to  a  madhouse." 

"  I  'm  not  thinking  of  her  begging  pardon,"  said 
Mrs.  Tulliver.  "But  if  she'd  just  take  no  notice, 
and  not  call  her  money  in  ;  as  it 's  not  so  much  for 
one  sister  to  ask  of  another  ;  time  'ud  mend  things, 
and  Tulliver  'ud  forget  all  about  it,  and  they  'd  be 
friends  again." 

Mrs.  Tulliver,  you  perceive,  was  not  aware  of  her 
husband's  irrevocable  determination  to  pay  in  the 
five  hundred  pounds  ;  at  least  such  a  determination 
exceeded  her  powers  of  bslief. 

"  Well,  Bessy,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  mournfully,  "  1 
don't  want  to  help  you  on  to  ruin.  I  won't  be 
behindhand  i'  doing  you  a  good  turn,  if  it  is  to  be 
done.  And  I  don't  like  it  said  among  acquaintance 
as  we  Ve  got  quarrels  in  the  family.  I  shall  tell 
Jane  that;  and  I  don't  mind  driving  to  Jane's 
to-morrow,  if  Pullet  does  n't  mind.  What  do  you 
say,  Mr.  Pullet  ?  " 

"  I  've  no  objections,"  said  Mr.  Pullet,  who  was 
perfectly  contented  with  any  course  the  quarrel 
might  take,  so  that  Mr.  Tulliver  did  not  apply  to 
him  for  money.  Mr.  Pullet  was  nervous  about  his 
investments,  and  did  not  see  how  a  man  could  have 
any  security  for  his  money  unless  he  turned  it  into 
land. 

After  a  little  further  discussion  as  to  whether  it 
would  not  be  better  for  Mrs.  Tulliver  to  accompany 


136  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

them  on  a  visit  to  sister  Glegg,  Mrs.  Pullet,  observ- 
ing that  it  was  tea-time,  turned  to  reach  from  a 
drawer  a  delicate  damask  napkin,  which  she  pinned 
before  her  in  the  fashion  of  an  apron.  The  door 
did,  in  fact,  soon  open ;  but  instead  of  the  tea-tray, 
Sally  introduced  an  object  so  startling  that  both 
Mrs.  Pullet  and  Mrs.  Tulliver  gave  a  scream,  caus- 
ing uncle  Pullet  to  swallow  his  lozenge  —  for  the 
fifth  time  in  his  life,  as  he  afterwards  noted. 


CHAPTER  X. 

MAGGIE   BEHAVES  WORSE   THAN    SHE   EXPECTED. 

THE  startling  object  which  thus  made  an  epoch  foi 
uncle  Pullet  was  no  other  than  little  Lucy,  with 
one  side  of  her  person,  from  her  small  foot  to  her 
bonnet-crown,  wet  and  discoloured  with  mud,  hold- 
ing out  two  tiny  blackened  hands,  and  making  a 
very  piteous  face.  To  account  for  this  unprece- 
dented apparition  in  aunt  Pullet's  parlour,  we  must 
return  to  the  moment  when  the  three  children  went 
to  play  out  of  doors,  and  the  small  demons  who  had 
taken  possession  of  Maggie's  soul  at  an  early  period 
of  the  day  had  returned  in  all  the  greater  force  after 
a  temporary  absence.  All  the  disagreeable  recol- 
lections of  the  morning  were  thick  upon  her,  when 
Tom,  whose  displeasure  towards  her  had  been  con- 
siderably refreshed  by  her  foolish  trick  of  causing 
him  to  upset  his  cowslip  wine,  said,  "  Here,  Lucy, 
you  come  along  with  me,"  and  walked  off  to  the 
area  where  the  toads  were,  as  if  there  were  no 
Maggie  in  existence.  Seeing  this,  Maggie  lingered 
at  a  distance,  looking  like  a  small  Medusa  with  her 
snakes  cropped.  Lucy  was  naturally  pleased  that 
cousin  Tom  was  so  good  to  her,  and  it  was  very 
amusing  to  see  him  tickling  a  fat  toad  with  a  piece 
of  string  when  the  toad  was  safe  down  the  area, 
with  an  iron  grating  over  him.  Still  Lucy  wished 
Maggie  to  enjoy  the  spectacle  also,  especially  as  she 


138  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

would  doubtless  find  a  name  for  the  toad,  and  say 
•what  had  been,  his  past  history ;  for  Lucy  had  a 
delighted  semi-belief  in  Maggie's  storiss  about  the 
live  things  they  came  upon  by  accident,  —  how  Mrs. 
Earwig  had  a  wash  at  home,  and  one  of  her  children 
had  fallen  into  the  hot  copper,  for  which  reason  she 
was  running  so  fast  to  fetch  the  doctor.  Tom  had 
a  profound  contempt  for  this  nonsense  of  Maggie's, 
smashing  the  earwig  at  once  as  a  superfluous  yet 
easy  means  of  proving  the  entire  unreality  of  such 
a  story ;  but  Lucy,  for  the  life  of  her,  could  not 
help  fancying  there  was  something  in  it,  and  at  all 
events  thought  it  was  very  pretty  make-believe. 
So  now  the  desire  to  know  the  history  of  a  very 
portly  toad,  added  to  her  habitual  affectionateness, 
made  her  run  back  to  Maggie  and  say,  "  Oh,  there 
is  such  a  big,  funny  toad,  Maggie !  Do  come  and 
see." 

Maggie  said  nothing,  but  turned  away  from  her 
with  a  deeper  frown.  As  long  as  Tom  seemed  to 
prefer  Lucy  to  her,  Lucy  made  part  of  his  unkind- 
ness.  Maggie  would  have  thought  a  little  while 
ago  that  she  could  never  be  cross  with  pretty  little 
Lucy,  any  more  than  she  could  be  cruel  to  a  little 
white  mouse ;  but  then,  Tom  had  always  been  quite 
indifferent  to  Lucy  before,  and  it  had  been  left  to 
Maggie  to  pet  and  make  much  of  her.  As  it  was, 
she  was  actually  beginning  to  think  that  she  should 
like  to  make  Lucy  cry,  by  slapping  or  pinching  her, 
especially  as  it  might  vex  Tom,  whom  it  was  of  no 
use  to  slap,  even  if  she  dared,  because  he  did  n't 
rnind  it.  And  if  Lucy  had  n't  been  there,  Maggie 
was  sure  he  would  have  got  friends  with  her  sooner. 

Tickling  a  fat  toad  who  is  not  highly  sensitive,  is 
an  amusement  that  it  is  possible  to  exhaust,  and 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  139 

Tom  by  and  by  began  to  look  round  for  some  other 
mode  of  passing  the  time.  But  in  so  prim  a  garden, 
where  they  were  not  to  go  off  the  paved  walks, 
there  was  not  a  great  choice  of  spoit.  The  only 
great  pleasure  such  a  restriction  suggested  was  the 
pleasure  of  breaking  it,  and  Tom  began  to  meditate 
an  insurrectionary  visit  to  the  pond,  about  a  field's 
length  beyond  the  garden. 

"  I  say,  Lucy,"  he  began,  nodding  his  head  up  and 
down  with  great  significance,  as  he  coiled  up  his 
string  again,  "  what  do  you  think  I  mean  to  do  ? " 

"  What,  Tom  ?  "  said  Lucy,  with  curiosity. 

"  I  mean  to  go  to  the  pond,  and  look  at  the  pike. 
You  may  go  with  me  if  you  like,"  said  the  young 
sultan. 

"Oh,  Tom,  dare  you?"  said  Lucy.  "Aunt  said 
we  must  n't  go  out  of  the  garden." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  go  out  at  the  other  end  of  the  gar- 
den," said  Tom.  "  Nobody  'ull  see  us.  Besides,  I 
don't  care  if  they  do,  —  I  '11  run  off  home." 

"  But  /  could  n't  run,"  said  Lucy,  who  had  never 
before  been  exposed  to  such  severe  temptation. 

"  Oh,  never  mind,  —  they  won't  be  cross  with 
you"  said  Tom.  "  You  say  I  took  you." 

Tom  walked  along,  and  Lucy  trotted  by  his  side, 
timidly  enjoying  the  rare  treat  of  doing  something 
naughty,  —  excited  also  by  the  mention  of  that  celeb- 
.rity,  the  pike,  about  which  she  was  quite  uncer- 
tain whether  it  was  a  fish  or  a  fowl.  Maggie  saw 
them  leaving  the  garden,  and  could  not  resist  the 
impulse  to  follow.  Anger  and  jealousy  can  no  more 
bear  to  \o?e  sight  of  their  objects  than  love,  and  that 
Tom  and  Lucy  should  do  or  see  anything  of  which 
she  was  ignorant  would  have  been  an  intolerable 
idea  to  Maggie.  So  she  kept  a  few  yards  behind 


140  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

them,  unobserved  by  Tom,  who  was  presently  ab- 
sorbed in  watching  for  the  pike,  —  a  highly  inter- 
esting monster,  he  was  said  to  be  so  very  old,  so 
very  large,  and  to  have  such  a  remarkable  appetite. 
The  pike,  like  other  celebrities,  did  not  show  when 
he  was  watched  for ;  but  Tom  caught  sight  of  some- 
thing in  rapid  movement  in  the  water,  which  at- 
tracted him  to  another  spot  on  the  brink  of  the 
pond. 

"  Here,  Lucy  !  "  he  said  in  a  loud  whisper,  "  come 
here  !  take  care  !  keep  on  the  grass  —  don't  step 
where  the  cows  have  been  ! "  he  added,  pointing  to 
a  peninsula  of  dry  grass,  with  trodden  mud  on  each 
side  of  it ;  for  Tom's  contemptuous  conception  of  a 
girl  included  the  attribute  of  being  unfit  to  walk  in 
dirty  places. 

Lucy  came  carefully  as  she  was  bidden,  and  bent 
down  to  look  at  what  seemed  a  golden  arrow-head 
darting  through  the  water.  It  was  a  water-snake, 
Tom  told  her ;  and  Lucy  at  last  could  see  the  ser- 
pentine wave  of  its  body,  very  much  wondering  that 
a  snake  could  swim.  Maggie  had  drawn  nearer  and 
nearer,  —  she  must  see  it  too,  though  it  was  bitter 
to  her  like  everything  else,  since  Tom  did  not  care 
about  her  seeing  it.  At  last  she  was  close  by  Lucy ; 
and  Tom,  who  had  been  aware  of  her  approach  but 
would  not  notice  it  till  he  was  obliged,  turned  round 
and  said,  — 

"  Now,  get  away,  Maggie ;  there 's  no  room  for 
you  on  the  grass  here.  Nobody  asked  you  to  come." 

There  were  passions  at  war  in  Maggie  at  that 
moment  to  have  made  a  tragedy,  if  tragedies  were 
made  by  passion  only ;  but  the  essential  -n  pcyeOos 
which  was  present  in  the  passion  was  wanting  to 
the  action :  the  utmost  Maggie  could  do,  with  a 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  141 

fierce  thrust  of  her  small  brown  arm,  was  to  push 
poor  little  pink-and-white  Lucy  into  the  cow-trodden 
mud. 

Then  Tom  could  not  restrain  himself,  and  gave 
Maggie  two  smart  slaps  on  the  arm  as  he  ran  to 
pick  up  Lucy,  who  lay  crying  helplessly.  Maggie 
retreated  to  the  roots  of  a  tree  a  few  yards  off,  and 
looked  on  iinpenitently.  Usually  her  repentance 
came  quickly  after  one  rash  deed,  but  now  Tom  and 
Lucy  had  made  her  so  miserable,  she  was  glad  to 
spoil  their  happiness,  —  glad  to  make  everybody  un- 
comfortable. Why  should  she  be  sorry  ?  Tom  was 
very  slow  to  forgive  her,  however  sorry  she  might 
have  been. 

"  I  shall  tell  mother,  you  know,  Miss  Mag,"  said 
Tom,  loudly  and  emphatically,  as  soon  as  Lucy  was 
up  and  ready  to  walk  away.  It  was  not  Tom's 
practice  to  "  tell,"  but  here  justice  clearly  demanded 
that  Maggie  should  be  visited  with  the  utmost  pun- 
ishment :  not  that  Tom  had  learned  to  put  his  views 
in  that  abstract  form;  he  never  mentioned  "jus- 
tice," and  had  no  idea  that  his  desire  to  punish 
might  be  called  by  that  fine  name.  Lucy  was  too 
entirely  absorbed  by  the  evil  that  had  befallen  her 
—  the  spoiling  of  her  pretty  best  clothes,  and  the 
discomfort  of  being  wet  and  dirty  —  to  think  much 
of  the  cause,  which  was  entirely  mysterious  to  her. 
She  could  never  have  guessed  what  she  had  done  to 
make  Maggie  angry  with  her ;  but  she  felt  that 
Maggie  was  very  unkind  and  disagreeable,  and  made 
no  magnanimous  entreaties  to  Tom  that  he  would 
not  "  tell,"  only  running  along  by  his  side  and  cry- 
ing piteously,  while  Maggie  sat  on  the  roots  of  the 
tree  and  looked  after  them  with  her  small  Medusa 
face. 


142  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Sally,"  said  Tom,  when  they  reached  the  kitchen 
door,  and  Sally  looked  at  them  in  speechless  amaze, 
with  a  piece  of  bread-and-butter  in  her  mouth  and 
a  toasting-fork  in  her  hand,  —  "  Sally,  tell  mother  it 
was  Maggie  pushed  Lucy  into  the  mud." 

"  But  Lors  ha'  massy,  how  did  you  get  near  such 
mud  as  that  ? "  said  Sally,  making  a  wry  face,  as 
she  stooped  down  and  examined  the  corpus  delicti. 

Tom's  imagination  had  not  been  rapid  and  capa- 
cious enough  to  include  this  question  among  the 
foreseen  consequences,  but  it  was  no  sooner  put 
than  he  foresaw  whither  it  tended,  and  that  Maggie 
would  not  be  considered  the  only  culprit  in  the  case. 
He  walked  quietly  away  from  the  kitchen  door, 
leaving  Sally  to  that  pleasure  of  guessing  which 
active  minds  notoriously  prefer  to  ready-made 
knowledge. 

Sally,  as  you  are  aware,  lost  no  time  in  presenting 
Lucy  at  the  parlour  door,  for  to  have  so  dirty  an  ob- 
ject introduced  into  the  house  at  Garum  Firs  was 
too  great  a  weight  to  ba  sustained  by  a  single  mind. 

"  Goodness  gracious  !  "  aunt  Pullet  exclaimed, 
after  preluding  by  an  inarticulate  scream  ;  "  keep 
her  at  the  door,  Sally  !  Don't  bring  her  off  the  oil- 
cloth, whatever  you  do." 

"Why,  she's  tumbled  into  some  nasty  mud," 
said  Mrs.  Tul liver,  going  up  to  Lucy  to  examine  into 
the  amount  of  damage  to  clothes  for  which  she 
felt  herself  responsible  to  her  sister  Deane. 

"  If  you  please,  'urn,  it  was  Miss  Maggie  as 
pushed  her  in,"  said  Sally  ;  "  Master  Tom  's  been 
and  said  so,  and  they  must  ha'  been  to  the  pond, 
for  it's  only  there  they  could  ha'  got  into  such 
dirt." 

"  There  it  is,  Bessy ;  it 's  what  I  've  been  telling 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  143 

you,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  in  a  tone  of  prophetic  sad- 
ness :  "  it 's  your  children,  —  there  's  no  knowing 
what  they  11  come  to." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  mute,  feeling  herself  a  truly 
wretched  mother.  As  usual,  the  thought  pressed 
upon  her  that  people  would  think  she  had  done 
something  wicked  to  deserve  her  maternal  troubles, 
while  Mrs.  Pullet  began  to  give  elaborate  directions 
to  Sally  how  to  guard  the  premises  from  serious 
injury  in  the  course  of  removing  the  dirt.  Mean- 
time tea  was  to  be  brought  in  by  the  cook,  and  the 
two  naughty  children  were  to  have  theirs  in  an 
ignominious  manner  in  the  kitchen.  Mrs.  Tulliver 
went  out  to  speak  to  these  naughty  children,  sup- 
posing  them  to  be  close  at  hand ;  but  it  was  not 
until  after  some  search  that  she  found  Tom  leaning 
with  rather  a  hardened  careless  air  against  the 
white  paling  of  the  poultry-yard,  and  lowering  his 
piece  of  stiing  on  the  other  side  as  a  means  of 
exasperating  the  turkey-ccck. 

"  Tom,  you  naughty  boy,  where  's  your  sister  ? " 
said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  in  a  distressed  voice. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Tom ;  his  eagerness  for 
justice  on  Maggie  had  diminished  since  he  had 
seen  clearly  that  it  could  hardly  be  brought  about 
without  the  injustice  of  some  blame  on  his  own 
conduct. 

"  Why,  where  did  you  leave  her  ? "  said  his 
mother,  looking  round. 

"  Sitting  under  the  tree,  against  the  pond,"  said 
Tom,  apparently  indifferent  to  everything  but  the 
string  and  the  turkey-cock. 

"  Then  go  and  fetch  her  in  this  minute,  you 
naughty  boy.  And  how  could  you  think  o'  going 
to  the  pond,  and  taking  your  sister  where  there  was 


144  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

dirt  ?  You  know  she  '11  do  mischief,  if  there 's 
mischief  to  be  done." 

It  was  Mrs.  Tulliver's  way,  if  she  blamed  Tom, 
to  refer  his  misdemeanour,  somehow  or  other,  to 
Maggie. 

The  idea  of  Maggie  sitting  alone  by  the  pond 
roused  an  habitual  fear  in  Mrs.  Tulliver's  mind,  and 
she  mounted  the  horse-block  to  satisfy  herself  by 
a  eight  of  that  fatal  child,  while  Tom  walked  —  not 
very  quickly  —  on  his  way  towards  her. 

"  They  're  such  children  for  the  water,  mine  are," 
she  said  aloud  without  reflecting  that  there  was  no 
one  to  hear  her ;  "  they  '11  be  brought  in  dead  and 
drownded  some  day.  I  wish  that  river  was  far 
enough." 

But  when  she  not  only  failed  to  discern  Maggie, 
but  presently  saw  Torn  returning  from  the  pool 
alone,  this  hovering  fear  entered  and  took  complete 
possession  of  her,  and  she  hurried  to  meet  him. 

"  Maggie 's  nowhere  about  the  pond,  mother," 
said  Tom  ;  "  she  's  gone  away." 

You  may  conceive  the  terrified  search  for  Maggie, 
and  the  difficulty  of  convincing  her  mother  that  she 
was  not  in  the  pond.  Mrs.  Pullet  observed  that 
the  child  might  come  to  a  worse  end  if  she  lived,  — 
there  was  no  knowing;  and  Mr.  Pullet,  confused 
and  overwhelmed  by  this  revolutionary  aspect  of 
things,  —  the  tea  deferred  and  the  poultry  alarmed 
by  the  unusual  running  to  and  fro,  —  took  up  his 
spud  as  an  instrument  of  search,  and  reached  down 
a  key  to  unlock  the  goosepen,  as  a  likely  place  for 
Maggie  to  lie  concealed  in. 

Tom,  after  a  while,  started  the  idea  that  Maggie 
was  gone  home  (without  thinking  it  necessary  to 
state  that  it  was  what  he  should  have  done  hiniself 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  145 

under  the  circumstances),  and  the  suggestion  was 
seized  as  a  comfort  by  his  mother. 

"  Sister,  for  goodness'  sake  let  'em  put  the  horse 
in  the  carriage  and  take  me  home,  —  we  shall  per- 
haps find  her  on  the  road.  Lucy  can't  walk  in  her 
dirty  clothes,"  she  said,  looking  at  that  innocent 
victim,  who  was  wrapped  up  in  a  shawl,  and  sitting 
with  naked  feet  on  the  sofa. 

Aunt  Pullet  was  quite  willing  to  take  the  shortest 
means  of  restoring  her  premises  to  order  and  quiet, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  Mrs.  Tulliver  was  in  the 
chaise  looking  anxiously  at  the  most  distant  point 
before  her.  What  the  father  would  say  if  Maggie 
was  lost  ?  was  a  question  that  predominated  over 
every  other. 


VOL.1.— 10 


CHAPTEK  XI. 

MAGGIE   TRIES   TO   RUN   AWAY   FROM   HER   SHADOW. 

MAGGIE'S  intentions,  as  usual,  were  on  a  larger 
scale  than  Tom  had  imagined.  The  resolution  that 
gathered  in  her  mind,  after  Tom  and  Lucy  had 
walked  away,  was  not  so  simple  as  that  of  going 
home.  No!  she  would  run  away  and  go  to  the 
gypsies,  and  Tom  should  never  see  her  any  more. 
That  was  by  no  means  a  new  idea  to  Maggie ;  she 
had  been  so  often  told  she  was  like  a  gypsy,  and 
"  half  wild,"  that  when  she  was  miserable  it  seemed 
to  her  the  only  way  of  escaping  opprobrium,  and 
being  entirely  in  harmony  with  circumstances,  would 
be  to  live  in  a  little  brown  tent  on  the  commons: 
the  gypsies,  she  considered,  would  gladly  receive 
her,  and  pay  her  much  respect  on  account  of  her 
superior  knowledge.  She  had  once  mentioned  her 
views  on  this  point  to  Tom,  and  suggested  that  he 
should  stain  his  face  brown,  and  they  should  run 
away  together ;  but  Tom  rejected  the  scheme  with 
contempt,  observing  that  gypsies  were  thieves,  and 
hardly  got  anything  to  eat,  and  had  nothing  to  drive 
but  a  donkey.  To-day,  however,  Maggie  thought 
her  misery  had  reached  a  pitch  at  which  gypsydom 
was  her  only  refuge,  and  she  rose  from  her  seat  on 
the  roots  of  the  tree  with  the  sense  that  this  was  a 
great  crisis  in  her  life ;  she  would  run  straight  away 
till  she  came  to  Dunlow  Common,  where  there 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  147 

would  certainly  be  gypsies ;  and  cruel  Tom,  and  the 
rest  of  her  relations  who  found  fault  with  her, 
should  never  see  her  any  more,  She  thought  of  her 
father  as  she  ran  along,  but  she  reconciled  herself 
to  the  idea  of  parting  with  him,  by  determining 
that  she  would  secretly  send  him  a  letter  by  a 
small  gypsy,  who  would  run  away  without  telling 
where  she  was,  and  just  let  him  know  that  she 
was  well  and  happy,  and  always  loved  him  very 
much. 

Maggie  soon  got  out  of  breath  with  running ;  but 
by  the  time  Tom  got  to  the  pond  again,  she  was  at 
the  distance  of  three  long  fields,  and  was  on  the 
edge  of  the  lane  leading  to  the  high-road.  She 
stopped  to  pant  a  little,  reflecting  that  running 
away  was  not  a  pleasant  thing  until  one  had  got 
quite  to  the  common  where  the  gypsies  were,  but 
her  resolution  had  not  abated :  she  presently  passed 
through  the  gate  into  the  lane,  not  knowing  where 
it  would  lead  her,  for  it  was  not  this  way  that  they 
came  from  Dorlcote  Mill  to  Garum  Firs,  and  she 
felt  all  the  safer  for  that,  because  there  was  no 
chance  of  her  being  overtaken.  But  she  was  soon 
aware,  not  without  trembling,  that  there  were  two 
men  coming  along  the  lane  in  front  of  her :  she  had 
not  thought  of  meeting  strangers,  —  she  had  been 
too  much  occupied  with  the  idea  of  her  friends  com- 
ing after  her.  The  formidable  strangers  were  two 
shabby-looking  men  with  flushed  faces,  one  of  them 
carrying  a  bundle  on  a  stick  over  his  shoulder ;  but 
to  her  surprise,  while  she  was  dreading  their  disap- 
probation as  a  runaway,  the  man  with  the  bundle 
stopped,  and  in  a  half-whining,  half -coaxing  tone 
asked  her  if  she  had  a  copper  to  give  a  poor  man. 
Maggie  had  a  sixpence  in  her  pocket,  —  her  uncle 


148  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Glegg's  present,  —  which  she  immediately  drew  out 
and  gave  this  poor  man  with  a  polite  smile,  hoping 
he  would  feel  very  kindly  towards  her  as  a  generous 
person.  "  That 's  the  only  money  I  've  got,"  she 
said  apologetically.  "  Thank  you,  little  miss,"  said 
the  man  in  a  less  respectful  and  grateful  tone  than 
Maggie  anticipated,  and  she  even  observed  that  he 
smiled  and  winked  at  his  companion.  She  walked 
on  hurriedly,  but  was  aware  that  the  two  men  were 
standing  still,  probably  to  look  after  her,  and  she 
presently  heard  them  laughing  loudly.  Suddenly 
it  occurred  to  her  that  they  might  think  she  was 
an  idiot :  Tom  had  said  that  her  cropped  hair  made 
her  look  like  an  idiot,  and  it  was  too  painful  an 
idea  to  be  readily  forgotten.  Besides,  she  had  no 
sleeves  on,  —  only  a  cape  and  a  bonnet.  It  was 
clear  that  she  was  not  likely  to  make  a  favourable 
impression  on  passengers,  and  she  thought  she  would 
turn  into  the  fields  again ;  but  not  on  the  same  side 
of  the  lane  as  before,  lest  they  should  still  be  uncle 
Pullet's  fields.  She  turned  through  the  first  gate 
that  was  not  locked,  and  felt  a  delightful  sense  of 
privacy  in  creeping  along  by  the  hedgerows,  after 
her  recent  humiliating  encounter.  She  was  used  to 
wandering  about  the  fields  by  herself,  and  was  less 
timid  there  than  on  the  high-road.  Sometimes  she 
had  to  climb  over  high  gates,  but  that  was  a  small 
evil ;  she  was  getting  out  of  reach  very  fast,  and 
she  should  probably  soon  come  within  sight  of 
Dunlow  Common,  or  at  least  of  some  other  common, 
for  she  had  heard  her  father  say  that  you  could  n't 
go  very  far  without  corning  to  a  common.  She 
hoped  so,  for  she  was  getting  rather  tired  and 
hungry,  and  until  she  reached  the  gypsies  there 
was  no  definite  prospect  of  bread-and-butter.  It 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  149 

was  still  broad  daylight,  for  aunt  Pullet,  retaining 
the  early  habits  of  the  Dodson  family,  took  tea  at 
half-past  four  by  the  sun,  and  at  five  by  the  kitchen 
clock  ;  so,  though  it  was  nearly  an  hour  since  Maggie 
started,  there  was  no  gathering  gloom  on  the  fields 
to  remind  her  that  the  night  would  come.  Still,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  had  been  walking  a  very 
great  distance  indeed,  and  it  was  really  surpris- 
ing that  the  common  did  not  come  within  sight. 
Hitherto  she  had  been  in  the  rich  parish  of  Garuin, 
where  there  was  a  great  deal  of  pasture-land,  and 
she  had  only  seen  one  labourer  at  a  distance.  That 
was  fortunate  in  some  respects,  as  labourers  might 
be  too  ignorant  to  understand  the  propriety  of  her 
wanting  to  go  to  Dunlow  Common ;  yet  it  would 
have  been  better  if  she  could  have  met  some  one 
who  would  tell  her  the  way  without  wanting  to 
know  anything  about  her  private  business.  At  last, 
however,  the  green  fields  came  to  an  end,  and  Maggi3 
found  herself  looking  through  the  bars  of  a  gate 
into  a  lane  with  a  wide  margin  of  grass  on  each 
side  of  it.  She  had  never  seen  such  a  wide  lane 
before,  and  without  her  knowing  why,  it  gave  her 
the  impression  that  the  common  could  not  be  far 
off;  perhaps  it  was  because  she  saw  a  donkey  with 
a  log  to  his  foot  feeding  on  the  grassy  margin,  for 
she  had  seen  a  donkey  with  that  pitiable  encum- 
brance on  Dunlow  Common  when  she  had  been 
across  it  in  her  father's  gig.  She  crept  through  the 
bars  of  the  gate  and  walked  on  with  new  spirit, 
though  not  without  haunting  images  of  Apollyon, 
and  a  highwayman  with  a  pistol,  and  a  blinking 
dwarf  in  yellow,  with  a  mouth  from  ear  to  ear,  and 
other  miscellaneous  dangers.  For  poor  little  Maggie 
had  at  once  the  timidity  of  an  active  imagination 


ISO  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  the  daring  that  comes  from  overmastering  im- 
pulse. She  had  rushed  into  the  adventure  of  seek- 
ing her  unknown  kindred,  the  gypsies ;  and  now  she 
was  in  this  strange  lane,  she  hardly  dared  look  on 
one  side  of  her,  lest  she  should  see  the  diabolical 
blacksmith  in  his  leathern  apron  grinning  at  her 
with  his  arms  akimbo.  It  was  not  without  a  leap- 
ing of  the  heart  that  she  caught  sight  of  a  small 
pair  of  bare  legs  sticking  up,  feet  uppermost,  by  the 
side  of  a  hillock ;  they  seemed  something  hideously 
preternatural,  —  a  diabolical  kind  of  fungus  ;  for  she 
was  too  much  agitated  at  the  first  glance  to  see  the 
ragged  clothes  and  the  dark  shaggy  head  attached 
to  them.  It  was  a  boy  asleep,  and  Maggie  trotted 
along  faster  and  more  lightly,  lest  she  should  wake 
him :  it  did  not  occur  to  her  that  he  was  one  of  her 
friends  the  gypsies,  who  in  all  probability  would 
have  very  genial  manners.  But  the  fact  was  so, 
for  at  the  next  bend  in  the  lane,  Maggie  actually 
saw  the  little  semicircular  black  tent  with  the 
blue  smoke  rising  before  it,  which  was  to  be  her 
refuge  from  all  the  blighting  obloquy  that  had 
pursued  bar  in  civilized  life.  She  even  saw  a  tall 
female  figure  by  the  column  of  smoke,  —  doubtless 
the  gypsy-mother,  who  provided  the  tea  and  other 
groceries;  it  was  astonishing  to  herself  that  she 
did  not  feel  more  delighted.  But  it  was  startling 
to  find  the  gypsies  in  a  lane,  after  all,  and  not  on  a 
common;  indeed,  it  was  rather  disappointing;  for  a 
mysterious  illimitable  common,  where  there  were 
sand-pits  to  hide  in,  and  one  was  out  of  every- 
body's reach,  had  always  made  part  of  Maggie's 
picture  of  gypsy  life.  She  went  on,  however,  and 
thought  with  some  comfort  that  gypsies  most  likely 
knew  nothing  about  idiots,  so  there  was  no  danger 


.O  .3 


Maggie  and  the  Gypsy. 

Original  Etching  by  C.  O.  Murray. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  151 

of  their  falling  into  the  mistake  of  setting  her 
down  at  the  first  glance  as  an  idiot.  It  was  plain 
she  had  attracted  attention  ;  for  the  tall  figure,  who 
proved  to  be  a  young  woman  with  a  baby  on  her 
arm,  walked  slowly  to  meet  her.  Maggie  looked 
up  in  the  new  face  rather  tremblingly  as  it  ap- 
proached, and  was  reassured  by  the  thought  that 
her  aunt  Pullet  and  the  rest  were  right  when  they 
called  her  a  gypsy,  for  this  face,  with  the  bright 
dark  eyes  and  the  long  hair,  was  really  something 
like  what  she  used  to  see  in  the  glass  before  she 
cut  her  hair  off. 

"  My  little  lady,,  where  are  you  going  to  ? "  the 
gypsy  said,  in  a  tone  of  coaxing  deference. 

It  was  delightful,  and  just  what  Maggie  expected  : 
the  gypsies  saw  at  once  that  she  was  a  little  lady, 
and  were  prepared  to  treat  her  accordingly. 

"  Not  any  farther,"  said  Maggie,  feeling  as  if  she 
were  saying  what  she  had  rehearsed  in  a  dream. 
"  I  'm  come  to  stay  with  you,  please." 

"That's  pretty;  come,  then.  Why,  what  a  nice 
little  lady  you  are,  to  be  sure  ! "  said  the  gypsy, 
taking  her  by  the  hand.  Maggie  thought  her  very 
agreeable,  but  wished  she  had  not  been  so  dirty. 

There  was  quite  a  group  round  the  fire  when 
they  reached  it.  An  old  gypsy  woman  was  seated 
on  the  ground  nursing  her  knees,  and  occasionally 
poking  a  skewer  into  the  round  kettle  that  sent 
forth  an  odorous  steam :  two  small  shock-headed 
children  were  lying  prone  and  resting  on  their 
elbows  something  like  small  sphinxes  ;  and  a  placid 
donkey  was  bending  his  head  over  a  tall  girl,  who, 
lying  on  her  back,  was  scratching  his  nose  and 
indulging  him  with  a  bite  of  excellent  stolen  hay. 
The  slanting  sunlight  fell  kindly  upon  them,  and 


152  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  scene  was  really  very  pretty  and  comfortable, 
Maggie  thought,  only  she  hoped  they  would  soon 
set  out  the  tea-cups.  Everything  would  be  quite 
charming  when  she  had  taught  the  gypsies  to  use  a 
washing-basin,  and  to  feel  an  interest  in  books.  It 
was  a  little  confusing,  .though,  that  the  young 
woman  began  to  speak  to  the  old  one  in  a  language 
which  Maggie  did  not  understand,  while  the  tall 
girl,  who  was  feeding  the  donkey,  sat  up  and  stared 
at  her  without  offering  any  salutation.  At  last  the 
old  woman  said,  — 

"What!  my  pretty  lady,  are  you  come  to  stay 
with  us  ?  Sit  ye  down  and  tell  us  where  you  come 
from." 

It  was  just  like  a  story:  Maggie  liked  to  be 
called  pretty  lady  and  treated  in  this  way.  She 
sat  down  and  said, — 

"  I  'm  come  from  home  because  I  'm  unhappy, 
and  I  mean  to  be  a  gypsy.  I  '11  live  with  you  if 
you  like,  and  I  can  teach  you  a  great  many 
things." 

"  Such  a  clever  little  lady,"  said  the  woman  with 
the  baby,  sitting  down  by  Maggie,  and  allowing 
baby  to  crawl ;  "  and  such  a  pretty  bonnet  and 
frock,"  she  added,  taking  off  Maggie's  bonnet  and 
looking  at  it  while  she  made  an  observation  to  the 
old  woman,  in  the  unknown  language.  The  tall 
girl  snatched  the  bonnet  and  put  it  on  her  own 
head  hindforemost  with  a  grin;  but  Maggie  was 
determined  not  to  show  any  weakness  on  this  sub- 
ject, as  if  she  were  susceptible  about  her  bonnet. 

"  I  don't  want  to  wear  a  bonnet,"  she  said  ;  "  I  'd 
rather  wear  a  red  handkerchief,  like  yours  "  (look- 
ing at  her  friend  by  her  side).  "  My  hair  was  quite 
long  till  yesterday,  when  I  cut  it  off;  but  I  dare 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  153 

say  it  will  grow  again  very  soon,"  she  added  apolo- 
getically, thinking  it  probable  the  gypsies  had  a 
strong  prejudice  in  favour  of  long  hair.  And  Maggie 
had  forgotten  even  her  hunger  at  that  moment  in 
the  desire  to  conciliate  gypsy  opinion. 

"  Oh,  what  a  nice  little  lady !  —  and  rich,  I  'm 
sure,"  said  the  old  woman.  "  Did  n't  you  live  in  a 
beautiful  house  at  home  ?  " 

"  Yes,  my  home  is  pretty,  and  I  'm  very  fond  of 
the  river,  where  we  go  fishing  —  but  I  'm  often 
very  unhappy.  I  should  have  liked  to  bring  my 
books  with  me,  but  I  came  away  in  a  hurry,  you 
know.  But  I  can  tell  you  almost  everything  there 
is  in  my  books,  I  Ve  read  them  so  many  times,  — 
and  that  will  amuse  you.  And  I  can  tell  you 
something  about  Geography  too,  —  that 's  about  the 
world  we  live  in,  —  very  useful  and  interesting. 
Did  you  ever  hear  about  Columbus  ? " 

Maggie's  eyes  had  'begun  to  sparkle  and  her 
cheeks  to  flush,  —  she  was  really  beginning  to  in- 
struct the  gypsies,  and  gaining  great  influence  over 
them.  The  gypsies  themselves  were  not  without 
amazement  at  this  talk,  though  their  attention  was 
divided  by  the  contents  of  Maggie's  pocket,  which 
the  friend  at  her  right  hand  had  by  this  time 
emptied  without  attracting  her  notice. 

"  Is  that  where  you  live,  my  little  lady  ? "  said 
the  old  woman,  at  the  mention  of  Columbus. 

"  Oh  no  !  "  said  Maggie,  with  some  pity ;  "  Colum- 
bus was  a  very  wonderful  man,  who  found  out  half 
the  world,  and  they  put  chains  on  him  and  treated 
him  very  badly,  you  know,  —  it 's  in  my  Catechism 
of  Geography  —  but  perhaps  it 's  rather  too  long  to 
tell  before  tea  .  .  .  I  want  my  tea  so." 

The  last  words  burst  from  Maggie,  in  spite  of 


154  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

herself,  with  a  sudden  drop  from  patronizing  instruc- 
tion to  simple  peevishness. 

"  Why,  she 's  hungry,  poor  little  lady,"  said  the 
younger  woman.  "  Give  her  some  o'  the  cold  vic- 
tual. You  've  been  walking  a  good  way,  I  '11  be 
bound,  my  dear.  Where  's  your  home  ?  " 

"  It 's  Dorlcote  Mill,  a  good  way  off,"  said  Maggie. 
"  My  father  is  Mr.  Tulliver,  but  we  must  n't  let 
him  know  where  I  am,  else  he  '11  fetch  me  home 
again.  Where  does  the  queen  of  the  gypsies  live  ? " 

"What!  do  you  want  to  go  to  her,  my  little 
lady  ? "  said  the  younger  woman.  The  tall  girl 
meanwhile  was  constantly  staring  at  Maggie  and 
grinning.  Her  manners  were  certainly  not  agree- 
able. 

"  No,"  said  Maggie,  "  I  'm  only  thinking  that  if 
she  is  n't  a  very  good  queen  you  might  be  glad 
when  she  died,  and  you  could  choose  another.  If 
I  was  a  queen,  I  'd  be  a  very  good  queen  and  kind 
to  everybody." 

"  Here  's  a  bit  o'  nice  victual,  then,"  said  the  old 
woman,  handing  to  Maggie  a  lump  of  dry  bread, 
which  she  had  taken  from  a  bag  of  scraps,  and  a 
piece  of  cold  bacon. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Maggie,  looking  at  the  food 
without  taking  it ;  "  but  will  you  give  me  some 
bread-and-butter  and  tea  instead  ?  I  don't  like 
bacon." 

"  We  've  got  no  tea  nor  butter,"  said  the  old 
woman,  with  something  like  a  scowl,  as  if  she  were 
getting  tired  of  coaxing. 

"Oh,  a  little  bread  and  treacle  would  do,"  said 
Maggie. 

"  We  han't  got  no  treacle,"  said  the  old  woman 
crossly,  whereupon  there  followed  a  sharp  dialogue 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  155 

between  the  two  women  in  their  unknown  tongne, 
and  one  of  the  small  sphinxes  snatched  at  the 
bread-and-bacon,  and  began  to  eat  it.  At  this 
moment  the  tall  girl,  who  had  gone  a  few  yards  off, 
came  back,  and  said  something  which  produced  a 
strong  effect.  The  old  woman,  seeming  to  forget 
Maggie's  hunger,  poked  the  skewer  into  the  pot 
with  new  vigour,  and  the  younger  crept  under  the 
tent,  and  reached  out  some  platters  and  spoons. 
Maggie  trembled  a  little,  and  was  afraid  the  tears 
would  come  into  her  eyes.  Meanwhile  the  tall 
girl  gave  a  shrill  cry,  and  presently  came  running 
up  the  boy  whom  Maggie  had  passed  as  he  was 
sleeping,  —  a  rough  urchin  about  the  age  of  Tom. 
He  stared  at  Maggie,  and  there  ensued  much  incom- 
prehensible chattering.  She  felt  very  lonely,  and 
was  quite  sure  she  should  begin  to  cry  before  long ; 
the  gypsies  did  n't  seem  to  mind  her  at  all,  and  she 
felt  quite  weak  among  them.  But  the  springing 
tears  were  checked  by  new  terror,  when  two  men 
came  up,  whose  approach  had  been  the  cause  of  the 
sudden  excitement.  The  elder  of  the  two  carried  a 
bag,  which  he  flung  down,  addressing  the  women  in 
a  loud  and  scolding  tone,  which  they  answered  by 
a  shower  of  treble  sauciness  ;  while  a  black  cur  ran 
barking  up  to  Maggie,  and  threw  her  into  a  tremor 
that  only  found  a  new  cause  in  the  curses  with 
which  the  younger  man  called  the  dog  off,  and  gave 
him  a  rap  with  a  great  stick  he  held  in  his  hand. 

Maggie  felt  that  it  was  impossible  she  should 
ever  be  queen  of  these  people,  or  ever  communicate 
to  them  amusing  and  useful  knowledge. 

Both  the  men  now  seemed  to  be  inquiring  about 
Moggie,  for  they  looked  at  her,  and  the  tone  of  the 
conversation  became  of  that  pacific  kind  which 


IS6  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

implies  curiosity  on  one  side  and  the  power  of  satis- 
fying it  on  the  other.  At  last  the  younger  woman 
said  in  her  previous  deferential  coaxing  tone, — 

"This  nice  little  lady's  come  to  live  with  us: 
are  n't  you  glad  ? " 

"  Ay,  very  glad,"  said  the  younger  man,  who  was 
looking  at  Maggie's  silver  thimble  and  other  small 
matters  that  had  been  taken  from  her  pocket.  He 
returned  them  all  except  the  thimble  to  the  younger 
woman,  with  some  observation,  and  she  immedi- 
ately restored  them  to  Maggie's  pocket,  while  the 
men  seated  themselves,  and  began  to  attack  the  con- 
tents of  the  kettle,  —  a  stew  of  meat  and  potatoes, 
—  which  had  been  taken  off  the  tire  and  turned  out 
into  a  yellow  platter. 

Maggie  began  to  think  that  Tom  must  be  right 
about  the  gypsies,-  —  they  must  certainly  be  thieves, 
unless  the  man  meant  to  return  her  thimble  by 
and  by.  She  would  willingly  have  given  it  to  him, 
for  she  was  not  at  all  attached  to  her  thimble ; 
but  the  idea  that  she  was  among  thieves  prevented 
her  from  feeling  any  comfort  in  the  revival  of  def- 
erence and  attention  towards  her,  —  all  thieves, 
except  Robin  Hood,  were  wicked  people.  The 
women  saw  she  was  frightened. 

"  We  Ve  got  nothing  nice  for  a  lady  to  eat,"  said 
the  old  woman,  in  her  coaxing  tone.  "  And  she 's 
so  hungry,  sweet  little  lady." 

"  Here,  my  dear,  try  if  you  can  eat  a  bit  o'  this," 
said  the  younger  woman,  handing  some  of  the  stew 
on  a  brown  dish  v/ith  an  iron  spoon  to  Maggie,  who, 
remembering  that  the  old  woman  had  seened  angry 
with  her  for  not  liking  the  bread-and-bacon,  dared 
not  refuse  the  stew,  though  fear  had  chased  away 
her  appetite.  If  her  father  would  but  come  by  in 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  157 

the  gig  and  take  her  up  !  Or  even  if  Jack  the 
Giantkiller,  or  Mr.  Greatheart,  or  St.  George  who 
slew  the  dragon  on  the  halfpennies,  would  happen  to 
pass  that  way !  But  Maggie  thought  with  a  sink- 
ing heart  that  these  heroes  were  never  seen  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  St.  Ogg's,  —  nothing  very  won- 
derful ever  came  there. 

Maggie  Tulliver,  you  perceive,  was  by  no  means 
that  well-trained,  well-informed  young  person  that 
a  small  female  of  eight  or  nine  necessarily  is  in 
these  days :  she  had  only  been  to  school  a  year  at 
St.  Ogg's,  and  had  so  few  books  that  she  sometimes 
read  the  dictionary ;  so  that  in  travelling  over  her 
small  mind  you  would  have  found  the  most  un- 
expected ignorance  as  well  as  unexpected  knowl- 
edge. She  could  have  informed  you  that  there 
was  such  a  word  as  "  polygamy,"  and  being  also 
acquainted  with  "  polysyllable,"  she  had  deduced 
the  conclusion  that  "  poly  "  meant  "  many ; "  but 
she  had  had  no  idea  that  gypsies  were  not  well  sup- 
plied with  groceries,  and  her  thoughts  generally  were 
the  oddest  mixture  of  clear-eyed  acumen  and  blind 
dreams. 

Her  ideas  about  the  gypsies  had  undergone  a 
rapid  modification  in  the  last  five  minutes.  From 
having  considered  them  very  respectful  companions, 
amenable  to  instruction,  she  had  begun  to  think 
that  they  meant  perhaps  to  kill  her  as  soon  it  was 
dark,  and  cut  up  her  body  for  gradual  cooking : 
the  suspicion  crossed  her  that  the  fierce-eyed  old 
man  was  in  fact  the  devil,  who  might  drop  that 
transparent  disguise  at  any  moment,  and  turn  either 
into  the  grinning  blacksmith  or  else  a  fiery-eyed 
monster  with  dragon's  wings.  It  was  no  use 
trying  to  eat  the  stew,  and  yet  the  thing  she  most 


158  TI1E  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

dreaded  was  to  offend  the  gypsies,  by  betraying  her 
extremely  unfavourable  opinion  of  them,  and  she 
wondered,  with  a  keenness  of  interest  that  no  theo- 
logian could  have  exceeded,  whether,  if  the  devil 
were  really  present,  he  would  know  her  thoughts. 

"  What !  you  don't  like  the  smell  of  it,  my  dear," 
said  the  young  woman,  observing  that  Maggie  did 
not  even  take  a  spoonful  of  the  stew.  "  Try  a  bit, 

—  come." 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Maggie,  summoning  all  her 
force  for  a  desperate  effort,  and  trying  to  smile  in  a 
friendly  way.  "  I  have  n't  time,  I  think,  —  it  seems 
getting  darker.  I  think  I  must  go  home  now,  and 
come  again  another  day,  and  then  I  can  bring  you 
a  basket  with  some  jam-tarts  and  things." 

Maggie  rose  from  her  seat  as  she  threw  out  this 
illusory  prospect,  devoutly  hoping  that  Apollyon 
was  gullible;  but  her  hope  sank  when  the  old 
gypsy-woman  said,  "  Stop  a  bit,  stop  a  bit,  little  lady, 

—  we  '11  take  you  home,  all  safe,  when  we  've  done 
supper :  you  shall  ride  home,  like  a  lady." 

Maggie  sat  down  again,  with  little  faith  in  this 
promise,  though  she  presently  saw  the  tall  girl  put- 
ting a  bridle  on  the  donkey,  and  throwing  a  couple 
of  bags  on  his  back. 

"  Now  then,  little  missis,"  said  the  younger  man, 
rising,  and  leading  the  donkey  forward,  "  tell  us 
where  you  live,  —  what 's  the  name  o'  the  place  ? " 

"Dorlcote  Mill  is  my  home,"  said  Maggie,  eagerly. 
"  My  father  is  Mr.  Tulliver,  —  he  lives  there." 

"  What !  a  big  mill  a  little  way  this  side  o'  St. 
Ogg's?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Maggie.  "  Is  it  far  off  ?  I  think  I 
should  like  to  walk  there,  if  you  please." 

"  No,  no,  it  '11  be  getting  dark ;  we  must  make 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  159 

haste.  And  the  donkey  '11  carry  you  as  nice  as  can 
be,  —  you  '11  see." 

He  lifted  Maggie  as  he  spoke,  and  set  her  on  the 
donkey.  She  felt  relieved  that  it  was  not  the  old 
man  who  seemed  to  be  going  with  her,  but  she  had 
only  a  trembling  hope  that  she  was  really  going 
home. 

"  Here 's  your  pretty  bonnet,"  said  the  younger 
woman,  putting  that  recently  despised  but  now 
welcome  article  of  costume  on  Maggie's  head  ;  "  and 
you  '11  say  we  've  been  very  good  to  you,  won't  you  ? 
and  what  a  nice  little  lady  we  said  you  was." 

"  Oh  yes,  thank  you,"  said  Maggie,  "  I  'm  very 
much  obliged  to  you.  But  I  wish  you  'd  go  with 
me  too."  She  thought  anything  was  better  than 
going  with  one  of  the  dreadful  men  alone :  it  would 
be  more  cheerful  to  be  murdered  by  a  larger  party. 

"  Ah,  you  're  fondest  o'  me,  are  n't  you  ?  "  said  the 
woman.  "  But  I  can't  go,  —  you  '11  go  too  fast  for 
me." 

It  now  appeared  that  the  man  also  was  to  be 
seated  on  the  donkey,  holding  Maggie  before  him ; 
and  she  was  as  incapable  of  remonstrating  against 
this  arrangement  as  the  donkey  himself,  though  no 
nightmare  had  ever  seemed  to  her  more  horrible. 
When  the  woman  had  patted  her  on  the  back,  and 
said  "  Good-by,"  the  donkey,  at  a  strong  hint  from 
the  man's  stick,  set  off  at  a  rapid  walk  along  the 
lane  towards  the  point  Maggie  had  come  from  an 
hour  ago ;  while  the  tall  girl  and  the  rough  urchin, 
also  furnished  with  sticks,  obligingly  escorted  them 
for  the  first  hundred  yards,  with  much  screaming 
and  thwacking. 

Not  Leonore,  in  that  preternatural  midnight  ex- 
cursion with  her  phantom  lover,  was  more  terrified 


160  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

than  poor  Maggie  in  this  entirely  natural  ride  on 
a  short-paced  donkey,  with  a  gypsy  behind  her, 
who  considered  that  he  was  earning  half  a  crown. 
The  red  light  of  the  setting  sun  seemed  to  have  a 
portentous  meaning,  with  which  the  alarming  bray 
of  the  second  donkey  with  the  log  on  its  foot  must 
surely  have  some  connection.  Two  low  thatched 
cottages  —  the  only  houses  they  passed  in  this  lane 
—  seemed  to  add  to  its  dreariness  :  they  had  no 
windows  to  speak  of,  and  the  doors  were  closed: 
it  was  probable  that  they  were  inhabited  by  witches, 
and  it  was  a  relief  to  find  that  the  donkey  did  not 
stop  there. 

At  last  —  oh,  sight  of  joy  !  —  this  lane,  the  long- 
est in  the  world,  was  coming  to  an  end,  was  opening 
on  a  broad  high-road,  where  there  was  actually  a 
coach  passing !  And  there  was  a  finger-post  at  the 
corner :  she  had  surely  seen  that  finger-post  before, 
—  "To  St.  Ogg's,  2  miles."  The  gypsy  really  meant 
to  take  her  home,  then  :  he  was  probably  a  good 
man,  after  all,  and  might  have  been  rather  hurt  at 
the  thought  that  she  did  n't  like  coming  with  him 
alone.  This  idea  became  stronger  as  she  felt  more 
and  more  certain  that  she  knew  the  road  quite  well, 
and  she  was  considering  how  she  might  open  a 
conversation  with  the  injured  gypsy,  and  not  only 
gratify  his  feelings  but  efface  the  impression  of  her 
cowardice,  when,  as  they  reached  a  cross-road, 
Maggie  caught  sight  of  some  one  coming  on  a 
white-faced  horse. 

"  Oh,  stop,  stop  ! "  she  cried  out.  "  There 's  my 
father !  Oh,  father,  father  !  " 

The  sudden  joy  was  almost  painful,  and  before 
her  father  reached  her,  she  was  sobbing.  Great  was 
Mr.  Tulliver's  wonder,  for  he  had  made  a  round 
from  Basset,  and  had  not  yet  been  home. 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  161 

"  Why,  what 's  the  meaning  o'  this  ? "  he  said, 
checking  his  horse,  while  Maggie  slipped  from  the 
donkey  and  ran  to  her  father's  stirrup. 

"  The  little  miss  lost  herself,  I  reckon,"  said  the 
gypsy.  "  She  'd  come  to  our  tent  at  the  far  end  o' 
Dunlow  Lane,  and  I  was  bringing  her  where  she 
said  her  home  was.  It 's  a  good  way  to  come  arter 
being  on  the  tramp  all  day." 

"  Oh  yes,  father,  he  's  been  very  good  to  bring  me 
home,"  said  Maggie  "  A  very  kind,  good  man  ! " 

"  Here,  then,  my  man,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  taking 
out  five  shillings.  "  It 's  the  best  day's  work  you 
ever  did.  I  could  n't  afford  to  lose  the  little  wench; 
here,  lift  her  up  be  "ore  me." 

"  Why,  Maggie,  how  's  this,  how  's  this  ?  "  he  said, 
as  they  rode  along,  while  she  laid  her  head  against 
her  father,  and  sobbed.  "  How  came  you  to  be 
rambling  about  and  lose  yourself  ? " 

"  Oh,  father,"  sobbed  Maggie,  "  I  ran  away  be- 
cause I  was  so  unhappy,  —  Tom  was  so  angry  with 
me.  I  could  n't  bear  it." 

"  Pooh,  pooh,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  soothingly,  "you 
must  n't  think  o'  running  away  from  father.  What 
'ud  father  do  without  his  little  wench  ?  " 

"  Oh  no,  I  never  will  again,  father,  —  never." 

Mr.  Tulliver  spoke  his  mind  very  strongly  when 
he  reached  home  that  evening ;  and  the  effect  was 
seen  in  the  remarkable  fact  that  Maggie  never 
heard  one  reproach  from  her  mother,  or  one  taunt 
from  Tom,  about  this  foolish  business  of  her  running 
away  to  the  gypsies.  Maggie  was  rather  awe- 
stricken  by  this  unusual  treatment,  and  sometimes 
thought  that  her  conduct  had  been  too  wicked  to 
be  alluded  to. 

VOL.  I.  —  11 


CHAPTER  XII. 

MR.   AND   MRS.   GLEGG  AT  HOME. 

IN  order  to  see  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Glegg  at  home,  we 
must  enter  the  town  of  St.  Ogg's,  —  that  venerable 
town  with  the  red-fluted  roofs  and  the  broad  ware- 
house gables,  where  the  black  ships  unlade  them- 
selves of  their  burdens  from  the  far  north,  and 
carry  away,  in  exchange,  the  precious  inland  prod- 
ucts, the  well-crushed  cheese  and  the  soft  fleeces, 
which  my  refined  readers  have  doubtless  become 
acquainted  with  through  the  medium  of  the  best 
classic  pastorals. 

It  is  one  of  those  old,  old  towns  which  impress 
one  as  a  continuation  and  outgrowth  of  nature,  as 
much  as  the  nests  of  the  bower-birds  or  the  winding 
galleries  of  the  white  ants ;  a  town  which  carries 
the  traces  of  its  long  growth  and  history  like  a 
millennial  tree,  and  has  sprung  up  and  developed 
in  the  same  spot  between  the  river  and  the  low  hill 
from  the  time  when  the  Roman  legions  turned  their 
backs  on  it  from  the  camp  on  the  hillside,  and  the 
long-haired  sea-kings  came  up  the  river  and  looked 
with  fierce  eager  eyes  at  the  fatness  of  the  land.  It  is 
a  town  "  familiar  with  forgotten  years."  The  shadow 
of  the  Saxon  hero-king  si  ill  walks  there  fitfully, 
reviewing  the  scenes  of  his  youth  and  love-time, 
and  is  met  by  the  gloomier  shadow  of  the  dreadful 
heathen  Dane,  who  was  stabbed  in  the  midst  of  his 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  163 

warriors  by  the  sword  of  an  invisible  avenger,  and 
who  rises  on  autumn  evenings  like  a  white  mist 
from  his  tumulus  on  the  hill,  and  hovers  in  the 
court  of  the  old  hall  by  the  river-side,  —  the  spot 
where  he  was  thus  miraculously  slain  in  the  days 
before  the  old  hall  was  built.  It  was  the  Normans 
who  began  to  build  that  fine  old  hall,  which  is  like 
the  town,  telling  of  the  thoughts  and  hands  of 
widely  sundered  generations  ;  but  it  is  all  so  old 
that  we  look  with  loving  pardon  at  its  inconsisten- 
cies, and  are  well  content  that  they  who  built  the 
stone  oriel,  and  they  who  built  the  Gothic  facade 
and  towers  of  finest  small  brickwork  with  the  tre- 
foil ornament,  and  the  windows  and  battlements 
defined  with  stone,  did  not  sacrilegiously  pull  down 
the  ancient  half-timbered  body  with  its  oak-roofed 
banqueting-hall. 

But  older  even  than  this  old  hall  is  perhaps  the 
bit  of  wall  now  built  into  the  belfry  of  the  parish 
church,  and  said  to  be  a  remnant  of  the  original 
chapel  dedicated  to  St.  Ogg,  the  patron  saint  of  this 
ancient  town,  of  whose  history  I  possess  several 
manuscript  versions.  I  incline  to  the  briefest,  since. 
if  it  should  not  be  wholly  true,  it  is  at  least  likely 
to  contain  the  least  falsehood.  "  Ogg  the  son  of 
Beorl,"  says  my  private  hagiographer,  "  was  a  boat- 
man who  gained  a  scanty  living  by  ferrying  passen- 
gers across  the  river  Floss.  And  it  came  to  pass, 
one  evening  when  the  winds  were  high,  that  there 
sat  moaning  by  the  brink  of  the  river  a  woman  with 
a  child  in  her  arms  ;  and  she  was  clad  in  rags,  and 
had  a  worn  and  withered  look,  and  she  craved  to  be 
rowed  across  the  river.  And  the  men  thereabout 
questioned  her,  and  said,  '  Wherefore  dost  thou 
desire  to  cross  the  river  ?  Tarry  till  the  morning, 


1 64  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  take  shelter  here  for  the  night :  so  shalt  thou 
be  wise  and  not  foolish."  Still  she  went  on  to 
mourn  and  crave.  But  Ogg  the  son  of  Beorl  came 
up  and  said,  '  I  will  ferry  thee  across  :  it  is  enough 
that  thy  heart  needs  it.'  And  he  ferried  her  across. 
And  it  came  to  pass,  when  she  stepped  ashore,  that 
her  rags  were  turned  into  robes  of  flowing  white, 
and  her  face  became  bright  with  exceeding  beauty, 
and  there  was  a  glory  around  it,  so  that  she  shed 
a  light  on  the  water  like  the  moon  in  its  brightness. 
And  she  said,  — '  Ogg,  the  son  of  Beorl,  thou  art 
blessed  in  that  thou  didst  not  question  and  wrangle 
with  the  heart's  need,  but  wast  smitten  with  pity, 
and  didst  straightway  relieve  the  same.  And  from 
henceforth  whoso  steps  into  thy  boat  shall  be  in  no 
peril  from  the  storm ;  and  whenever  it  puts  forth 
to  the  rescue,  it  shall  save  the  lives  both  of  men 
and  beasts.'  And  when  the  floods  came,  many  were 
saved  by  reason  of  that  blessing  on  the  boat.  But 
when  Ogg  the  son  of  Beorl  died,  behold,  in  the 
parting  of  his  soul,  the  boat  loosed  itself  from  its 
moorings,  and  was  floated  with  the  ebbing  tide  in 
great  swiftness  to  the  ocean,  and  was  seen  no  more. 
Yet  it  was  witnessed  in  the  floods  of  aftertime,  that 
at  the  coming  on  of  eventide,  Ogg  the  son  of  Beorl 
was  always  seen  with  his  boat  upon  the  wide-spread- 
ing waters,  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  sat  in  the  prow, 
shedding  a  light  around  as  of  the  moon  in  its 
brightness,  so  that  the  rowers  in  the  gathering 
darkness  took  heart  and  pulled  anew." 

This  legond,  one  sees,  reflects  from  a  far-off  time 
the  visitation  of  the  floods,  which,  even  when  they 
left  human  life  untouched,  were  widely  fatal  to  the 
helpless  cattle,  and  swept  as  sudden  death  over  all 
smaller  living  things.  But  the  town  knew  worse 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  165 

troubles  even  than  the  floods,  —  troubles  of  the  civil 
wars,  when  it  was  a  continual  fighting-place,  where 
first  Puritans  thanked  God  for  the  blood  of  the 
Loyalists,  and  then  Loyalists  thanked  God  for  the 
blood  of  the  Puritans.  Many  honest  citizens  lost 
all  their  possessions  for  conscience'  sake  in  those 
times,  and  went  forth  beggared  from  their  native 
town.  Doubtless  there  are  many  houses  standing 
now  on  which  those  honest  citizens  turned  their 
backs  in  sorrow :  quaint-gabled  houses  looking  on  the 
river,  jammed  between  newer  warehouses,  and  pene- 
trated by  surprising  passages,  which  turn  and  turn 
at  sharp  angles  till  they  lead  you  out  on  a  muddy 
strand  overflowed  continually  by  the  rushing  tide. 
Everywhere  the  brick  houses  have  a  mellow  look, 
and  in  Mrs.  Glegg's  day  there  was  no  incongruous 
new-fashioned  smartness,  no  plate-glass  in  shop- 
windows,  no  fresh  stucco-facing  or  other  fallacious 
attempt  to  make  fine  old  red  St.  Ogg's  wear  the  air 
of  a  town  that  sprang  up  yesterday.  The  shop- 
windows  were  small  and  unpretending ;  for  the 
farmers'  wives  and  daughters  who  came  to  do  their 
shopping  on  market-days  were  not  to  be  withdrawn 
from  their  regular  well-known  shops  ;  and  the 
tradesmen  had  no  wares  intended  for  customers 
who  would  go  on  their  way  and  be  seen  no  more. 
Ah  !  even  Mrs.  Glegg's  day  seems  far  back  in  the 
past  now,  separated  from  us  by  changes  that  widen 
the  years.  War  and  the  rumour  of  war  had  then 
died  out  from  the  minds  of  men,  and  if  they  were 
ever  thought  of  by  the  farmers  in  drab  great-coats, 
who  shook  the  grain  out  of  their  sample-bags  and 
buzzed  over  it  in  the  full  market-place,  it  was  as  a 
state  of  things  that  belonged  to  a  past  golden  age 
when  prices  were  high.  Surely  the  time  was  gone 


1 66  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

forever  when  the  broad  river  could  bring  up  unwel- 
come ships  :  Russia  was  only  the  place  where  the 
linseed  came  from  —  the  more  the  better  —  making 
grist  for  the  great  vertical  millstones  with  their 
scythe-like  arms,  roaring  and  grinding  and  carefully 
sweeping  as  if  an  informing  soul  were  in  them.  The 
Catholics,  bad  harvests,  and  the  mysterious  fluctu- 
ations of  trade  were  the  three  evils  mankind  had 
to  fear :  even  the  floods  had  not  been  great  of  late 
years.  The  mind  of  St.  Ogg's  did  not  look  exten- 
sively before  or  after.  It  inherited  a  long  past 
without  thinking  of  it,  and  had  no  eyes  for  the 
spirits  that  walk  the  streets.  Since  the  centuries 
when  St.  Ogg  with  his  boat  and  the  Virgin  Mother 
at  the  prow  had  been  seen  on  the  wide  water,  so 
many  memories  had  been  left  behind,  and  had 
gradually  vanished  like  the  receding  hill-tops  !  And 
the  present  time  was  like  the  level  plain  where  men 
lose  their  belief  in  volcanoes  and  earthquakes, 
thinking  to-morrow  will  be  as  yesterday,  and  the 
giant  forces  that  used  to  shake  the  earth  are  forever 
laid  to  sleep.  The  days  were  gone  when  people 
could  be  greatly  wrought  upon  by  their  faith,  still 
less  change  it :  the  Catholics  were  formidable  be- 
cause they  would  lay  hold  of  government  and  prop- 
erty, and  burn  men  alive ;  not  because  any  sane 
and  honest  parishioner  of  St.  Ogg's  could  be  brought 
to  believe  in  the  Pope.  One  nged  person  remem- 
bsred  how  a  rude  multitude  had  been  swayed  when 
John  Wesley  preached  in  the  cattle-market:  but 
for  a  long  while  it  had  not  been  expected  of  preach- 
ers that  they  should  shake  the  souls  of  men.  An 
occasional  burst  of  fervour,  in  Dissenting  pulpits,  on 
the  subject  of  infant  baptism,  was  the  only  symp- 
tom of  a  zeal  unsuited  to  sober  times  when  men  had 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  167 

done  with  change.  Protestantism  sat  at  ease,  un- 
mindful of  schisms,  careless  of  proselytism  :  Dis- 
sent was  an  inheritance  along  with  a  superior  pew 
and  a  business  connection ;  and  Churchmanship 
only  wondered  contemptuously  at  Dissent  as  a  fool- 
ish habit  that  clung  greatly  to  families  in  the 
grocery  and  chandlering  lines,  though  not  incom- 
patible with  prosperous  wholesale  dealing.  But 
with  the  Catholic  Question  had  come  a  slight 
'  wind  of  controversy  to  break  the  calm :  the  elderly 
rector  had  become  occasionally  historical  and  argu- 
mentative, and  Mr.  Spray,  the  Independent  min- 
ister, had  begun  to  preach  political  sermons,  in 
which  he  distinguished  with  much  subtlety  between 
his  fervent  belief  in  the  right  of  the  Catholics  to 
the  franchise  and  his  fervent  belief  in  their  eternal 
perdition.  Most  of  Mr.  Spray's  hearers,  however, 
were  incapable  of  following  his  subtleties,  and  many 
cld-fashioned  Dissenters  were  much  pained  by  his 
"  siding  with  the  Catholics  ;  "  while  others  thought 
he  had  better  let  politics  alone.  Public  spirit  was 
not  held  in  high  esteem  at  St.  Ogg's,  and  men  who 
busied  themselves  with  political  questions  were 
regarded  with  some  suspicion,  as  dangerous  char- 
acters: they  were  usually  persons  who  had  little 
or  no  business  of  their  own  to  manage,  or,  if  they 
had,  were  likely  enough  to  become  insolvent. 

This  was  the  general  aspect  of  things  at  St.  Ogg's 
in  Mrs.  Glegg's  day,  and  at  that  particular  period  in 
her  family  history  when  she  had  had  her  quarrel 
with  Mr.  Tulliver.  It  was  a  time  when  ignorance 
was  much  more  comfortable  than  at  present,  and  was 
received  with  all  the  honours  in  very  good  society, 
without  being  obliged  to  dress  itself  in  an  elaborate 
costume  of  knowledge;  a  time  when  cheap  periodicals 


168  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

were  not,  and  when  country  surgeons  never  thought 
of  asking  their  female  patients  if  they  were  fond  of 
reading,  but  simply  took  it  for  granted  that  they 
preferred  gossip :  a  time  when  ladies  in  rich  silk 
gowns  wore  large  pockets,  in  which  they  carried  a 
mutton-bone  to  secure  them  against  cramp.  Mrs. 
Glegg  carried  such  a  bone,  which  she  had  inherited 
from  her  grandmother  with  a  brocaded  gown  that 
would  stand  up  empty,  like  a  suit  of  armour,  and  a 
silver-headed  walking-stick ;  for  the  Dodson  family' 
had  been  respectable  for  many  generations. 

Mrs.  Glegg  had  both  a  front  and  a  back  parlour  in 
her  excellent  house  at  St.  Ogg's,  so  that  she  had  two 
points  of  view  from  which  she  could  observe  the 
weakness  of  her  fellow-beings,  and  reinforce  her 
thankfulness  for  her  own  exceptional  strength  of 
mind.  From  her  front  windows  she  could  look 
down  the  Tofton  Eoad,  leading  out  of  St.  Ogg's,  and 
note  the  growing  tendency  to  "  gadding  about "  in 
the  wives  of  men  not  retired  from  business,  together 
with  a  practice  of  wearing  woven  cotton  stockings, 
which  opened  a  dreary  prospect  for  the  coming 
generation ;  and  from  her  back  windows  she  could 
look  down  the  pleasant  garden  and  orchard  which 
stretched  to  the  river,  and  observe  the  folly  of  Mr. 
Glegg  in  spending  his  time  among  "  them  flowers 
and  vegetables."  For  Mr.  Glegg,  having  retired 
from  active  business  as  a  wool-stapler,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enjoying  himself  through  the  rest  of  his 
life,  had  found  this  last  occupation  so  much  more 
severe  than  his  business  that  he  had  been  driven 
into  amateur  hard  labour  as  a  dissipation,  and  habit- 
ually relaxed  by  doing  the  work  of  two  ordinary 
gardeners.  The  economizing  of  a  gardener's  wages 
might  perhaps  have  induced  Mrs.  Glegg  to  wink  at 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  169 

this  folly,  if  it  were  possible  for  a  healthy  female 
mind  even  to  simulate  respect  for  a  husband's 
hobby.  But  it  is  well  known  that  this  conjugal 
complacency  belongs  only  to  the  weaker  portion  of 
the  sex,  who  are  scarcely  alive  to  the  responsibilities 
of  a  wife  as  a  constituted  check  on  her  husband's 
pleasures,  which  are  hardly  ever  of  a  rational  or 
commendable  kind. 

Mr.  Glegg  on  his  side,  too,  had  a  double  source  of 
mental  occupation,  which  gave  every  promise  of 
baing  inexhaustible.  On  the  one  hand,  he  surprised 
himself  by  his  discoveries  in  natural  history,  finding 
that  his  piece  of  garden-ground  contained  wonder- 
ful caterpillars,  slugs,  and  insects,  which,  so  far  as 
he  had  heard,  had  never  before  attracted  human 
observation  ;  and  he  noticed  remarkable  coincidences 
between  these  zoological  phenomena  and  the  great 
events  of  that  time,  —  as,  for  example,  that  before 
the  burning  of  York  Minster  there  had  been  myste- 
rious serpentine  marks  on  the  leaves  of  the  rose- 
trees,  together  with  an  unusual  prevalence  of  slugs, 
which  he  had  been  puzzled  to  know  the  meaning  of, 
until  it  flashed  upon  him  with  this  melancholy  con- 
flagration. (Mr.  Glegg  had  an  unusual  amount  of 
mental  activity,  which,  when  disengaged  from  the 
wool  business,  naturally  made  itself  a  pathway  in 
other  directions.)  And  his  second  subject  of  medi- 
tation was  the  "  contrairiness  "  of  the  female  mind, 
as  typically  exhibited  in  Mrs.  Glegg.  That  a  crea- 
ture made  —  in  a  genealogical  sense  —  out  of  a 
man's  rib,  and  in  this  particular  case  maintained  in 
the  highest  respectability  without  any  trouble  of 
her  own,  should  be  normally  in  a  state  of  contra- 
diction to  the  blandest  propositions  and  even  to  the 
most  accommodating  concessions,  was  a  mystery  in 


170  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  scheme  of  things  to  which  he  had  often  in  vain 
sought  a  clew  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis. 
Mr.  Glegg  had  chosen  the  eldest  Miss  Dodson  as  a 
handsome  embodiment  of  female  prudence  and  thrift, 
and  being  himself  of  a  money-getting,  money-keep- 
ing turn,  had  calculated  on  much  conjugal  harmony. 
But  in  that  curious  compound,  the  feminine  char- 
acter, it  may  easily  happen  that  the  flavour  is  un- 
pleasant in  spite  of  excallent  ingredients ;  and  a  fine 
systematic  stinginess  may  be  accompanied  with  a 
seasoning  that  quite  spoils  its  relish.  Now,  good 
Mr.  Glegg  himself  was  stingy  in  the  most  amiable 
manner :  his  neighbours  called  him  "  near,"  which 
always  means  that  the  person  in  question  is  a  lov- 
able skinflint.  If  you  expressed  a  preference  for 
cheese-parings,  Mr.  Glegg  would  remember  to  save 
them  for  you,  with  a  good-natured  delight  in  grati- 
fying your  palate,  and  he  was  given  to  pet  all 
animals  which  required  no  appreciable  keep.  There 
was  no  humbug  or  hypocrisy  about  Mr.  Glegg:  his 
eyes  would  have  watered  with  true  feeling  over  the 
sale  of  a  widow's  furniture,  which  a  five-pound  note 
from  his  side-pocket  would  have  prevented ;  but  a 
donation  of  five  pounds  to  a  person  "  in  a  small  way 
of  life  "  would  have  seemed  to  him  a  mad  kind  of 
lavish  ness  rather  than  "  charity,"  which  had  always 
presented  itsalf  to  him  as  a  contribution  of  small 
aids,  not  a  neutralizing  of  misfortune.  And  Mr. 
Glegg  was  just  as  fond  of  saving  other  people's 
money  as  his  own  :  he  would  have  ridden  as  far 
round  to  avoid  a  turnpike  when  his  expenses  were 
to  be  paid  for  him,  as  when  they  were  to  come  out 
of  his  own  pocket,  and  was  quite  zealous  in  trying 
to  induce  indifferent  acquaintances  to  adopt  a  cheap 
aubstitute  for  blacking.  This  inalienable  habit  of 


BOY  AND  GIEL.  171 

saving,  as  an  end  in  itself,  belonged  to  the  indus- 
trious men  of  business  of  a  former  generation,  who 
made  their  fortunes  slowly,  almost  as  the  tracking 
of  the  fox  belongs  to  the  harrier,  —  it  constituted 
them  a  "race,"  which  is  nearly  lost  in  these  days  of 
rapid  money-getting,  when  lavislmess  comes  close 
on  the  back  of  want.  In  old-fashioned  times,  an 
"  independence  "  was  hardly  ever  made  without  a 
little  miserliness  as  a  condition,  and  you  would 
have  found  that  quality  in  every  provincial  distiict, 
combined  with  characters  as  various  as  the  fruits 
from  which  we  can  extract  acid.  The  true  Harpa-- 
gons  were  always  marked  and  exceptional  charac- 
ters :  not  so  the  worthy  tax-payers,  who,  having 
once  pinched  from  real  necessity,  retained  even  in 
the  midst  of  their  comfortable  retirement,  with  their 
wall-fruit  and  wine-bins,  the  habit  of  regarding  life 
as  an  ingenious  process  of  nibbling  out  one  's  liveli- 
hood without  leaving  any  perceptible  deficit,  and 
who  would  have  been  as  immediately  prompted  to 
give  up  a  newly  taxed  luxury  when  they  had  their 
clear  five  hundred  a  year,  as  when  they  had  only 
five  hundred  pounds  of  capital.  •  Mr.  Glegg  was  one 
of  these  men,  found  so  impracticable  by  chancellors 
of  the  exchequer;  and  knowing  this,  you  will  be 
the  better  able  to  understand  why  he  had  not 
swerved  from  the  conviction  that  he  had  made  an 
eligible  marriage,  in  spite  of  the  too  pungent  season- 
ing that  nature  had  given  to  the  eldest  Miss  Dodson's 
virtues.  A  man  with  an  affectionate  disposition, 
who  finds  a  wife  to  concur  with  his  fundamental 
idea  of  life,  easily  comes  to  persuade  himself  that 
no  other  woman  would  have  suited  him  so  well, 
and  does  a  little  daily  snapping  and  quarrelling 
without  any  sense  of  alienation.  Mr.  Glegg,  being 


172  THE  MILT,  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

of  a  reflective  turn,  and  no  longer  occupied  with 
wool,  had  much  wondering  meditation  on  the  pecu- 
liar constitution  of  the  female  mind  as  unfolded  to 
him  in  his  domestic  life ;  and  yet  he  thought  Mrs. 
Glegg's  household  ways  a  model  for  her  sex  :  it 
struck  him  as  a  pitiable  irregularity  in  other  women 
if  they  did  not  roll  up  their  table-napkins  with  the 
same  tightness  and  emphasis  as  Mrs.  Glegg  did,  if 
their  pastry  had  a  less  leathery  consistence,  and 
their  damson  cheese  a  less  venerable  hardness  than 
hers ;  nay,  even  the  peculiar  combination  of  grocery 
•  and  drug-like  odours  in  Mrs.  Glegg's  private  cup- 
board impressed  him  as  the  only  right  thing  in  the 
way  of  cupboard  smells.  I  am  not  sure  that  he 
would  not  have  longed  for  the  quarrelling  again,  if 
it  had  ceased  for  an  entire  week ;  and  it  is  certain 
that  an  acquiescent  mild  wife  would  have  left  his 
meditations  comparatively  jejune  and  barren  of 
mystery. 

Mr.  Glegg's  unmistakable  kind-heartedness  was 
shown  in  this,  that  it  pained  him  more  to  see  his 
wife  at  variance  with  others  —  even  with  Dolly, 
the  servant  —  than  to  be  in  a  state  of  cavil  with 
her  himself ;  and  the  quarrel  between  her  and  Mr. 
Tulliver  vexed  him  so  much  that  it  quite  nullified 
the  pleasure  he  would  otherwise  have  had  in  the 
state  of  his  early  cabbages,  as  he  walked  in  his 
garden  before  breakfast  the  next  morning.  Still 
he  went  into  breakfast  with  some  slight  hope  that, 
now  Mrs.  Glegg  had  "  slept  upon  it,"  her  anger  might 
be  subdued  enough  to  give  way  to  her  usually  strong 
sense  of  family  decorum.  She  had  been  used  to 
boast  that  there  had  never  been  any  of  those  deadly 
quarrels  among  the  Dodsons  which  had  disgraced 
other  families  ;  that  no  Dodson  had  ever  been  "  cut 


BOY  AND  GIRL  173 

off  with  a  shilling,"  and  no  cousin  of  the  Dodsons 
disowned ;  as,  indeed,  why  should  they  be  ?  for 
they  had  no  cousins  who  had  not  money  out  at  use, 
or  some  houses  of  their  own,  at  the  very  least. 

There  was  one  evening-cloud  which  had  always 
disappeared  from  Mrs.  Glegg's  brow  when  she  sat  at 
the  breakfast-table  :  it  was  her  fuzzy  front  of  curls ; 
for  as  she  occupied  herself  in  household  matters 
in  the  morning,  it  would  have  been  a  mere  extrav- 
agance to  put  on  anything  so  superfluous  to  the 
making  of  leathery  pastry  as  a  fuzzy  curled  front. 
By  half -past  ten  decorum  demanded  the  front: 
until  then  Mrs.  Glegg  could  economize  it,  and 
society  would  never  be  any  the  wiser.  But  the 
absence  of  that  cloud  only  left  it  more  apparent 
that  the  cloud  of  severity  remained ;  and  Mr.  Glegg, 
perceiving  this,  as  he  sat  down  to  his  milk-porridge, 
which  it  was  his  old  frugal  habit  to  stem  his  morn- 
ing hunger  with,  prudently  resolved  to  leave  the 
first  remark  to  Mrs.  Glegg,  lest,  to  so  delicate  an 
article  as  a  lady's  temper,  the  slightest  touch  should 
do  mischief.  People  who  seem  to  enjoy  their  ill- 
temper  have  a  way  of  keeping  it  in  fine  condition 
by  inflicting  privations  on  themselves.  That  was 
Mrs.  Glegg's  way:  she  made  her  tea  weaker  than 
usual  this  morning,  and  declined  butter.  It  was  a 
hard  case  that  a  vigorous  mood  for  quarrelling,  so 
highly  capable  of  using  any  opportunity,  should 
not  meet  with  a  single  remark  from  Mr.  Glegg  on 
which  to  exercise  itself.  But  by  and  by  it  ap- 
peared that  his  silence  would  answer  the  purpose, 
for  he  heard  himself  apostrophized  at  last  in  that 
tone  peculiar  to  the  wife  of  one's  bosom. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Glegg  !  it 's  a  poor  return  I  get  for 
making  you  the  wife  I  Ve  made  you  all  these  years. 


174  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

If  this  is  the  way  I  'm  to  be  treated,  T  'd  better  ha' 
known  it  before  my  poor  father  died,  and  then, 
when  I  'd  wanted  a  home,  I  should  ha'  gone  else- 
where —  as  the  choice  was  offered  me." 

Mr.  Glegg  paused  from  his  porridge  and  looked 
up,  —  not  with  any  new  amazement,  but  simply 
with  that  quiet,  habitual  wonder  with  which  we 
regard  constant  mysteiies. 

"  Why,  Mrs.  G.,  what  have  I  done  now  ? " 

"  Done  now,  Mr.  Glegg  ?  done  now  ?  .  .  .  I  'm 
sorry  for  you." 

Not  seeing  his  way  to  any  pertinent  answer,  Mr. 
Glegg  reverted  to  his  porridge. 

"  There 's  husbands  in  the  world,"  continued  Mrs. 
Glegg,  after  a  pause,  "as  'ud  have  known  how  to  do 
something  different  to  siding  with  everybody  else 
against  their  own  wives.  Perhaps  I  'm  wrong,  and 
you  can  teach  me  better.  But  I  've  allays  heard  as 
it 's  the  husband's  place  to  stand  by  the  wife,  in- 
stead o'  rejoicing  and  triumphing  when  folks  insult 
her." 

"  Now,  what  call  have  you  to  say  that  ?"  said  Mr. 
Glegg,  rather  warmly ;  for  though  a  kind  man,  he 
was  not  as  meek  as  Moses.  "  When  did  I  rejoice 
or  triumph  over  you?" 

"  There 's  ways  o'  doing  things  worse  than  speak- 
ing out  plain,  Mr.  Glegg.  I  'd  sooner  you  'd  tell  me 
to  my  faxce  as  you  make  light  of  me,  than  try  to 
make  out  as  everybody  's  in  the  right  but  me,  and 
come  to  your  breakfast  in  the  morning,  as  I  've 
hardly  slept  an  hour  this  night,  and  sulk  at  me  as 
if  I  was  the  dirt  under  your  feet." 

"  Sulk  at  you  ?  "  said  Mr.  Glegg,  in  a  tone  of  an- 
gry facetiousness.  "  You  're  like  a  tipsy  man  as 
thinks  everybody 's  had  too  much  but  himself." 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  175 

"  Don't  lower  yourself  with  using  coarse  language 
to  me,  Mr.  Glegg !  It  makes  you  look  very  small, 
though  you  can't  see  yourself,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg, 
in  a  tone  of  energetic  compassion.  "  A  man  in 
your  place  should  set  an  example,  and  talk  more 
sensible." 

"  Yes ;  but  will  you  listen  to  sense  ? "  retorted 
Mr.  Glegg,  sharply,  "  The  best  sense  I  can  talk  to 
you  is  what  I  said  last  night,  —  as  you  're  i'  the 
wrong  to  think  o'  calling  in  your  money,  when  it 's 
safe  enough  if  you  'd  let  it  alone,  all  because  of  a  bit 
of  a  tiff,  and  I  was  in  hopes  you  'd  ha'  altered  your 
mind  this  morning  But  if  you  'd  like  to  call  it  in, 
don't  do  it  in  a  hurry  now,  and  breed  more  enmity 
in  the  family,  —  but  wait  till  there  's  a  pretty  moit- 
gage  to  be  had  without  any  trouble.  You  'd  have 
to  set  the  lawyer  to  work  now  to  find  an  investment, 
and  make  no  end  o'  expense." 

Mrs.  Glegg  felt  there  was  really  something  in 
this  ;  but  she  tossed  her  head  and  emitted  a  guttural 
interjection  to  indicate  that  her  silence  was  only 
an  armistice,  not  a  peace.  And,  in  fact,  hostilities 
soon  broke  out  again. 

"  I  '11  thank  you  for  my  cup  o'  tea,  now,  Mrs.  G.," 
said  Mr.  Glegg,  seeing  that  she  did  not  proceed  to 
give  it  him  as  usual,  when  he  had  finished  his  por- 
ridge. She  lifted  the  teapot  with  a  slight  toss  of 
the  head,  and  said, — 

"  I  'm  glad  to  hear  you  '11  thank  me,  Mr.  Glegg. 
It's  little  thanks  /  get  for  what  I  do  for  folks  i' 
this  world.  Though  there 's  never  a  woman  o'  your 
side  o'  the  family,  Mr.  Glegg,  as  is  fit  to  stand  up 
with  me,  and  I  'd  say  it  if  I  was  on  my  dying  bed. 
Not  but  what  I  've  allays  conducted  myself  civil  to 
your  kin,  and  there  is  n't  one  of  'em  can  say  the 


1 76  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

contrary,  though  my  equils  they  are  n't,  arid  nobody 
shall  make  me  say  it." 

"  You  'd  better  leave  finding  fault  wi'  my  kin  till 
you  've  left  off  quarrelling  with  your  own,  Mrs.  G.," 
said  Mr.  Glegg,  with  angry  sarcasm.  "  I  '11  trouble 
you  for  the  milk-jug." 

"  That 's  as  false  a  word  as  ever  you  spoke,  Mr. 
Glegg,"  said  the  lady,  pouring  out  the  milk  with  un- 
usual profuseness,  as  much  as  to  say,  if  he  wanted 
milk  he  should  have  it  with  a  vengeance.  "And 
you  know  it 's  false.  I  'm  not  the  woman  to  quarrel 
with  my  own  kin  :  you  may,  for  I  've  known  you 
do  it." 

"  Why,  what  did  you  call  it  yesterday,  then,  leav- 
ing your  sister's  house  in  a  tantrum  ? " 

"  I  'd  no  quarrel  wi'  my  sister,  Mr.  Glegg,  and  it 's 
false  to  say  it.  Mr.  Tulliver  's  none  o'  my  blood, 
and  it  was  him  quarrelled  with  me,  and  drove  me 
out  o'  the  house.  But  perhaps  you  'd  have  had  me 
stay  and  be  swore  at,  Mr.  Glegg ;  perhaps  you  was 
vexed  not  to  hear  more  abuse  and  foul  language 
poured  out  upo'  your  own  wife.  But,  let  me  tell 
you,  it 's  your  disgrace." 

"  Did  ever  anybody  hear  the  like  i'  this  parish  ? " 
said  Mr.  Glegg,  getting  hot.  "  A  woman,  with 
everything  provided  for  her,  and  allowed  to  keep 
her  own  money  the  same  as  if  it  was  settled  on  her, 
and  with  a  gig  new  stuffed  and  lined  at  no  end  o' 
expense,  and  provided  for  when  I  die  beyond  any- 
thing she  could  expect  ...  to  go  on  i"  this  way, 
biting  and  snapping  like  a  mad  dog!  It's  beyond 
everything,  as  God  A'mighty  should  ha'  made 
women  so."  (These  last  words  were  uttered  in  a 
tone  of  sorrowful  agitation.  Mr.  Glegg  pushed  his  tea 
from  him,  and  tapped  the  table  with  both  his  hands.) 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  177 

"  Well,  Mr.  Glegg,  if  those  are  your  feelings,  it 's 
best  they  should  be  known,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  taking 
off  her  napkin,  and  folding  it  in  an  excited  manner. 
"  But  if  you  talk  o'  my  being  provided  for  beyond 
what  I  could  expect,  I  beg  leave  to  tell  you  as  I  'd  a 
right  to  expect  a  many  things  as  I  don't  find.  And 
as  to  my  being  like  a  mad  dog,  it 's  well  if  you  're  not 
cried  shame  on  by  the  county  for  your  treatment  of 
me,  for  it 's  what  I  can't  bear,  and  I  won't  bear  —  " 

Here  Mrs.  Glegg's  voice  intimated  that  she  was 
going  to  cry,  and,  breaking  off  from  speech,  she 
rang  the  bell  violently. 

"  Sally,"  she  said,  rising  from  her  chair,  and 
speaking  in  rather  a  choked  voice, "  light  a  fire  up- 
stairs, and  put  the  blinds  down.  Mr.  Glegg,  you  '11 
please  to  order  what  you  'd  like  for  dinner.  I  shall 
have  gruel." 

Mrs.  Glegg  walked  across  the  room  to  the  small 
book -case,  and  took  down  Baxter's  "  Saints'  Ever- 
lasting Rest,"  which  she  carried  with  her  upstairs. 
It  was  the  book  she  was  accustomed  to  lay  open 
before  her  on  special  occasions,  —  on  wet  Sunday 
mornings,  or  when  she  heard  of  a  death  in  the 
family,  or  when,  as  in  this  case,  her  quarrel  with  Mr. 
Glegg  had  been  set  an  octave  higher  than  usual. 

But  Mrs.  Glegg  carried  something  else  upstairs 
with  her,  which,  together  with  the  "  Saints'  Rest " 
and  the  gruel,  may  have  had  some  influence  in 
gradually  calming  her  feelings,  and  making  it  pos- 
sible for  her  to  endure  existence  on  the  ground- 
floor  shortly  before  tea-time.  This  was,  partly,  Mr. 
Glegg's  suggestion  that  she  would  do  well  to  let 
her  five  hundred  lie  still  until  a  good  investment 
turned  up ;  and,  further,  his  parenthetic  hint  at  his 
handsome  provision  for  her  in  case  of  his  death. 

VOL.    1.  —  12 


178  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Mr.  Glegg,  like  all  men  of  his  stamp,  was  extremely 
reticent  about  his  will ;  and  Mrs.  Glegg,  in  her 
gloomier  moments,  had  forebodings  that,  like  other 
husbands  of  whom  she  had  heard,  he  might  cherish 
the  mean  project  of  heightening  her  grief  at  his 
death  by  leaving  her  poorly  off,  in  which  case  she 
was  firmly  resolved  that  she  would  have  scarcely 
any  weeper  on  her  bonnet,  and  would  cry  no  more 
than  if  he  had  bean  a  second  husband.  But  if  he 
had  really  shown  her  any  testamentary  tenderness, 
it  would  be  affecting  to  think  of  him,  poor  man, 
when  he  was  gone  ;  and  even  his  foolish  fuss  about 
the  flowers  and  garden-stuff,  and  his  insistence  on 
the  subject  of  snails,  would  be  touching  when  it  was 
once  fairly  at  an  end.  To  survive  Mr.  Glegg,  and 
talk  eulogistically  of  him  as  a  man  who  might  have 
his  weaknesses,  but  who  had  done  the  right  thing 
by  her,  notwithstanding  his  numerous  poor  rela- 
tions; to  have  sums  of  interest  coming  in  more  fre- 
quently, and  secrete  it  in  various  corners,  baffling 
to  the  most  ingenious  of  thieves  (for,  to  Mrs. 
Glegg's  mind,  banks  and  strong-boxes  would  have 
nullified  the  pleasure  of  property, — she  might  as 
well  have  taken  her  food  in  capsules) ;  finally,  to  be 
looked  up  to  by  her  own  family  and  the  neighbour- 
hood so  as  no  woman  can  ever  hope  to  be  who  has 
not  the  preterite  and  present  dignity  comprised  in 
being  a  "  widow  well  left,"  —  all  this  made  a  flatter- 
ing and  conciliatory  view  of  the  future.  So  that 
wlien  good  Mr.  Glegg,  restored  to  good-humour  by 
much  hoeing,  and  moved  by  the  sight  of  his  wife's 
empty  chair,  with  her  knitting  rolled  up  in  the 
corner,  went  upstairs  to  her,  and  observed  that  the 
bell  had  been  tolling  for  poor  Mr.  Morton,  Mrs. 
Glegg  answered  magnanimously,  quite  as  if  she  had 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  179 

been  an  uninjured  woman,  "  Ah  !  then,  there  '11  be  a 
good  business  for  somebody  to  take  to." 

Baxter  had  been  open  at  least  eight  hours  by  this 
time,  for  it  was  nearly  five  o'clock  ;  and  if  people 
are  to  quarrel  often,  it  follows  as  a  corollary  that 
their  quarrels  cannot  be  protracted  beyond  certain 
limits. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Glegg  talked  quite  amicably  about 
the  Tullivers  that  evening.  Mr.  Glegg  went  the 
length  of  admitting  that  Tulliver  was  a  sad  man 
for  getting  into  hot  water,  and  was  like  enough  to 
run  through  his. property  ;  and  Mrs.  Glegg,  meeting 
this  acknowledgment  half-way,  declared  that  it 
was  beneath  her  to  take  notice  of  such  a  man's 
conduct,  and  that,  for  her  sister's  sake,  she  would 
let  him  keep  the  five  hundred  awhile  longer,  for 
when  she  put  it  out  on  a  mortgage  she  should  only 
get  four  per  cent. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

MR.   TULLIVER  FURTHER   ENTANGLES   THE   SKEIN 
OF  LIFE. 

OWING  to  this  new  adjustment  of  Mrs.  Glegg's 
thoughts,  Mrs.  Pullet  found  her  task  of  mediation 
the  next  day  surprisingly  easy.  Mrs.  Glegg,  in- 
deed, checked  her  rather  sharply  for  thinking  it 
would  be  necessary  to  tell  her  elder  sister  what 
was  the  right  mode  of  behaviour  in  family  matters. 
Mrs.  Pullet's  argument,  that  it  would  look  ill  in 
the  neighbourhood  if  people  should  have  it  in  their 
power  to  say  that  there  was  a  quarrel  in  the  family, 
was  particularly  offensive.  If  the  family  name 
never  suffered  except  through  Mrs.  Glegg,  Mrs. 
Pullet  might  lay  her  head  on  her  pillow  in  per- 
fect confidence. 

"  It 's  not  to  be  expected,  I  suppose,"  observed 
Mrs.  Glegg,  by  way  of  winding  up  the  subject,  "  as 
I  shall  go  to  the  mill  again  before  Bessy  comes  to 
see  me,  or  as  I  shall  go  and  fall  down  o'  my  knees 
to  Mr.  Tulliver,  and  ask  his  pardon  for  showing 
him  favours ;  but  I  shall  bear  no  malice,  and  when 
Mr.  Tulliver  speaks  civil  to  me,  I  '11  speak  civil  to 
him.  Nobody  has  any  call  to  tell  me  what 's 
becoming." 

Finding  it  unnecessary  to  plead  for  the  Tullivers, 
it  was  natural  that  aunt  Pullet  should  relax  a  little 
in  her  anxiety  for  them,  and  recur  to  the  annoyance 
she  had  suffered  yesterday  from  the  offspring  of  that 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  181 

apparently  ill-fated  house.  Mrs.  Glegg  heard  a  cir- 
cumstantial narrative,  to  which  Mr.  Pullet's  remark- 
able memory  furnished  some  items;  and  while  aunt 
Pullet  pitied  poor  Bessy's  bad  luck  with  her  chil- 
dren, and  expressed  a  half-formed  project  of  pay- 
ing for  Maggie's  being  sent  to  a  distant  boarding- 
school,  which  would  not  prevent  her  being  so 
brown,  but  might  tend  to  subdue  some  other  vices 
in  her,  aunt  Glegg  blamed  Bessy  for  her  weakness, 
and  appealed  to  all  witnesses  who  should  be  living 
when  the  Tulliver  children  had  turned  out  ill,  that 
she,  Mrs.  Glegg,  had  always  said  how  it  would  be 
from  the  very  first,  observing  that  it  was  wonderful 
to  herself  how  all  her  words  came  true. 

"  Then  I  may  call  and  tell  Bessy  you  '11  bear  no 
malice,  and  everything  be  as  it  was  before  ? "  Mrs. 
Pullet  said,  just  before  parting. 

"  Yes,  you  may,  Sophy,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg ;  "  you 
may  tell  Mr.  Tulliver,  and  Bessy  too,  as  I  'm  not 
going  to  behave  ill  because  folks  behave  ill  to  me  : 
I  know  it's  my  place,  as  the  eldest,  to  set  an 
example  in  every  respect,  and  I  do  it.  Nobody  can 
say  different  of  me,  if  they  '11  keep  to  the  truth." 

Mrs.  Glegg  being  in  this  state  of  satisfaction  in 
her  own  lofty  magnanimity,  I  leave  you  to  judge 
what  effect  was  produced  on  her  by  the  reception  of 
a  short  letter  from  Mr.  Tulliver,  that  very  evening, 
after  Mrs.  Pullet's  departure,  informing  her  that 
she  need  n't  trouble  her  mind  about  her  five  hun- 
dred pounds,  for  it  should  be  paid  back  to  her  in 
the  course  of  the  next  month  at  farthest,  together 
with  the  interest  due  thereon  until  the  time  of 
payment.  And  furthermore,  that  Mr.  Tulliver  had 
no  wish  to  behave  uncivilly  to  Mrs.  Glegg,  and  she 
was  welcome  to  his  house  whenever  she  liked  to 


i8z  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

come,  but  he  desired  no  favours  from  her,  either  for 
himself  or  his  children. 

It  was  poor  Mrs.  Tulliver  who  had  hastened  this 
catastrophe,  entirely  through  that  irrepressible 
hopefulness  of  hers  which  led  her  to  expect  that 
similar  causes  may  at  any  time  produce  different 
results.  It  had  very  often  occurred  in  her  experi- 
ence that  Mr.  Tulliver  had  done  something  because 
other  people  had  said  he  was  not  able  to  do  it,  or 
had  pitied  him  for  his  supposed  inability,  or  in  any 
other  way  piqued  his  pride;  still,  she  thought  to- 
day, if  she  told  him  when  he  came  in  to  tea  that 
sister  Pullet  was  gone  to  try  and  make  everything 
up  with  sister  Glegg,  so  that  he  need  n't  think 
about  paying  in  the  money,  it  would  give  a  cheer- 
ful effect  to  the  meal.  Mr.  Tulliver  had  never 
slackened  in  his  resolve  to  raise  the  money,  but 
now  he  at  once  determined  to  write  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Glegg,  which  should  cut  off  all  possibility  of  mistake. 
Mrs.  Pullet  gone  to  beg  and  pray  for  him,  indeed ! 
Mr.  Tulliver  did  not  willingly  write  a  letter,  and 
found  the  relation  between  spoken  and  written  lan- 
guage, briefly  known  as  spelling,  one  of  the  most 
puzzling  things  in  this  puzzling  world.  Neverthe- 
less, like  all  fervid  writing,  the  task  was  done  in 
Ijss  time  than  usual ;  and  if  the  spelling  differed 
from  Mrs.  Glegg's,  —  why,  she  belonged,  like  him- 
sslf,  to  a  generation  with  whom  spelling  was  a  mat- 
ter of  private  judgment. 

Mrs.  Glegg  did  not  alter  her  will  in  consequence 
of  this  letter,  and  cut  off  the  Tulliver  children  from 
their  sixth  and  seventh  share  in  her  thousand 
pounds  ;  for  she  had  her  principles.  No  one  must 
l>e  able  to  say  of  her  when  she  was  dead  that  she 
had  not  divided  her  money  with  perfect  fairness 


BOY  AND  GIRL.  183 

among  her  own  kin :  in  the  matter  of  wills,  personal 
qualities  were  subordinate  to  the  great  fundamental 
fact  of  blood ;  and  to  be  determined  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  your  property  by  caprice,  and  not  make  your 
legacies  bear  a  direct  ratio  to  degrees  of  kinship, 
was  a  prospective  disgrace  that  would  have  embit- 
tered her  life.  This  had  always  been  a  principle  in 
the  Dodson  family ;  it  was  one  form  of  that  sense 
of  honour  and  rectitude  which  was  a  proud  tradition 
in  such  families,  —  a  tradition  which  has  been  the 
salt  of  our  provincial  society. 

But  though  the.letter  could  not  shake  Mrs.  Glegg's 
principles,  it  made  the  family  breach  much  more 
difficult  to  mend ;  and  as  to  the  effect  it  pro- 
duced on  Mrs.  Glegg's  opinion  of  Mr.  Tulliver,  she 
begged  to  be  understood  from  that  time  forth  that 
she  had  nothing  whatever  to  say  about  him  :  his 
state  of  mind,  apparently,  was  too  corrupt  for  her 
to  contemplate  it  for  a  moment.  It  was  not  until 
the  evening  before  Tom  went  to  school,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  August,  that  Mrs.  Glegg  paid  a  visit  to 
her  sister  Tulliver,  sitting  in  her  gig  all  the  while, 
and  showing  her  displeasure  by  markedly  abstain- 
ing from  all  advice  and  criticism,  for,  as  she  ob- 
served to  her  sister  Deane,  "  Bessy  must  bear  the 
consequence  o'  having  such  a  husband,  though  I  'm 
sorry  for  her ; "  and  Mrs.  Deane  agreed  that  Bessy 
was  pitiable. 

That  evening  Tom  observed  to  Maggie,  "  Oh  my  ! 
Maggie,  aunt  Glegg 's  beginning  to  come  again  ;  I  'm 
glad  I  'm  going  to  school.  You  '11  catch  it  all  now  ! " 

Maggie  was  already  so  full  of  sorrow  at  the 
thought  of  Tom's  going  away  from  her,  that  this 
playful  exultation  of  his  seemed  very  unkind  and 
she  cried  herself  to  sleep  tnat  night. 


1 84  TBE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Mr.  Tulliver's  prompt  procedure  entailed  on  him 
further  promptitude  in  finding  the  convenient  person 
who  was  desirous  of  lending  five  hundred  pounds 
on  bond.  "  It  must  be  no  client  of  Wakem's,"  he 
said  to  himself ;  and  yet  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight 
it  turned  out  to  the  contrary ;  not  because  Mr. 
Tulliver's  will  was  feeble,  but  because  external 
fact  was  stronger.  Wakem's  client  was  the  only 
convenient  person  to  be  found.  Mr.  Tulliver  had  a 
destiny  as  well  as  (Edipus,  and  in  this  case  he 
might  plead,  like  (Edipus,  that  his  deed  was  inflicted 
on  him  rather  than  committed  by  him. 


BOOK  n. 

SCHOOL-TIME. 


CHAPTER    I. 

.TOM'S    "FIKST    HALF." 

TOM  TULLIVER'S  sufferings  during  the  first  quartet 
he  was  at  King's  Lorton,  under  the  distinguished 
care  of  the  Rev.  Walter  Stelling,  were  rather  severe. 
At  Mr.  Jaeobs's  academy,  life  had  not  presented 
itself  to  him  as  a  difficult  problem:  there  were 
plenty  of  fellows  to  play  with  ;  and  Tom,  being  good 
at  all  active  games,  —  fighting  especially,  — had  that 
precedence  among  them  which  appeared  to  him  in- 
separable from  the  personality  of  Tom  Tulliver.  Mr. 
Jacobs  himself —  familiarly  known  as  Old  Goggles, 
from  his  habit  of  wearing  spectacles  —  imposed  no 
painful  awe ;  and  if  it  was  the  property  of  snuffy 
old  hypocrites  like  him  to  write  like  copperplate 
and  surround  their  signatures  with  arabesques,  to 
spell  without  forethought,  and  to  spout  "  My  name 
is  Norval  "  without  bungling,  Tom,  for  his  part,  was 
rather  glad  he  was  not  in  danger  of  those  mean 
accomplishments.  He  was  not  going  to  be  a  snuffy 
schoolmaster,  —  he;  but  a  substantial  man,  like  his 
father,  who  used  to  go  hunting  when  he  was  younger, 
and  rode  a  capital  black  mare,  —  as  pretty  a  bit  of 
horse-flesh  as  ever  you  saw :  Tom  had  heard  what 


1 86  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

her  points  were  a  hundred  times.  He  meant  to  go 
hunting  too,  and  to  be  generally  respected.  When 
people  were  grown  up,  he  considered,  nobody  in- 
quired about  their  writing  and  spelling ;  when  he 
was  a  man,  he  should  be  master  of  everything,  and 
do  just  as  he  liked.  It  had  been  very  difficult  for 
him  to  reconcile  himself  to  the  idea  that  his  school-- 
time was  to  be  prolonged,  and  that  he  was  not  to 
be  brought  up  to  his  father's  business,  which  he  had 
always  thought  extremely  pleasant,  for  it  was  noth- 
ing but  riding  about,  giving  orders,  and  going  to 
market ;  and  he  thought  that  a  clergyman  would 
give  him  a  great  many  Scripture  lessons,  and  prob- 
ably make  him  learn  the  Gospel  and  Epistle  on  a 
Sunday  as  well  as  the  Collect.  But  in  the  absence 
of  specih'c  information,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
imagine  that  school  and  a  schoolmaster  would  be 
something  entirely  different  from  the  academy  of 
Mr.  Jacobs.  So,  not  to  be  at  a  deficiency,  in  case  of 
his  finding  genial  companions,  he  had  taken  care  to 
carry  with  him  a  small  box  of  percussion-caps  ;  not 
that  there  was  anything  particular  to  be  done  with 
them,  but  they  would  serve  to  impress  strange  boys 
with  a  sense  of  his  familiarity  with  guns.  Thus 
poor  Tom,  though  he  saw  very  clearly  through 
Maggie's  illusions,  was  not  without  illusions  of  his 
own,  which  were  to  be  cruelly  dissipated  by  his 
enlarged  experience  at  King's  Lorton. 

He  had  not  been  there  a  fortnight  before  it  was 
evident  to  him  that  life,  complicated  not  only  with 
the  Latin  Grammar  but  with  a  new  standard  of 
English  pronunciation,  was  a  very  difficult  business, 
made  all  the  more  obscure  by  a  thick  mist  of  bash- 
fulness.  Tom,  as  you  have  observed,  was  never  an 
exception  among  boys  for  ease  of  address ;  but  the 


SCHOOL-TIME.  187 

difficulty  of  enunciating  a  monosyllable,  in  reply  to 
Mr.  or  Mrs.  Stelling  was  so  great  that  he  even 
dreaded  to  be  asked  at  table  whether  he  would  have 
more  pudding.  As  to  the  percussion-caps,  he  had 
almost  resolved,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  heart,  that 
he  would  throw  them  into  a  neighbouring  pond  ;  for 
not  only  was  he  the  solitary  pupil,  but  he  began 
even  to  have  a  certain  scepticism  about  guns,  and  a 
general  sense  that  his  theory  of  life  was  under- 
mined. For  Mr.  Stelling  thought  nothing  of  guns, 
or  horses  either,  apparently  ;  and  yet  it  was  impos- 
sible for  Tom  to .  despise  Mr.  Stelling  as  lie  had 
despised  Old  Goggles.  If  there  were  anything  that 
was  not  thoroughly  genuine  about  Mr.  Stelling,  it 
lay  quite  beyond  Tom's  power  to  detect  it :  it  is 
only  by  a  wide  comparison  of  facts  that  the  wisest 
full-grown  man  can  distinguish  well-rolled  barrels 
from  more  supernal  thunder. 

Mr.  Stelling  was  a  well-sized,  broad-chested  man, 
not  yet  thirty,  with  rlaxen  hair  standing  erect,  and 
large  lightish-gray  eyes,  which  were  always  very 
wide  open; 'he  had  a  sonorous  bass  voice,  and  an 
air  of  defiant  self-confidence  inclining  to  brazenness. 
He  had  entered  on  his  career  with  great  vigour, 
and  intended  to  make  a  considerable  impression  on 
his  fellow-men.  The  Rev.  Walter  Stelling  was  not  a 
man  who  would  remain  among  the  "  inferior  clergy  " 
all  his  life.  He  had  a  true  British  determination  to 
push  his  way  in  the  world.  As  a  schoolmaster,  in 
the  first  place ;  for  there  were  capital  masterships 
of  grammar-schools  to  be  had,  and  Mr.  Stelling 
meant  to  have  one  of  them.  But  as  a  preacher 
also,  for  he  meant  always  to  preach  in  a  striking 
manner,  so  as  to  have  his  congregation  swelled  by 
admirers  from  neighbouring  parishes,  and  to  produce 


1 88  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

a  great  sensation  whenever  he  took  occasional  duty 
for  a  brother  clergyman  of  minor  gifts.  The  style 
of  preaching  he  had  chosen  was  the  extemporane- 
ous, which  was  held  little  short  of  the  miraculous  in 
rural  parishes  like  King's  Lorton.  Some  passages 
of  Massillon  and  Bourdaloue,  which  he  knew  by 
heart,  were  really  very  effective  when  rolled  out  in 
Mr.  Stelling's  deepest  tones;  but  as  comparatively 
feeble  appeals  of  his  own  were  delivered  in  the  same 
loud  and  impressive  manner,  they  were  often  thought 
quite  as  striking  by  his  hearers.  Mr.  Stelling's 
doctrine  was  of  no  particular  school;  if  anything, 
it  had  a  tinge  of  evangelicalism,  for  that  was  "  the 
telling  thing"  just  then  in  the  diocese  to  which 
King's  Lorton  belonged.  In  short,  Mr.  Stelling 
was  a  man  who  meant  to  rise  in  his  profession, 
and  to  rise  by  merit,  clearly,  since  he  had  no  inter- 
est beyond  what  might  be  promised  by  a  proble- 
matic relationship  to  a  great  lawyer  who  had  not 
yet  become  Lord  Chancellor.  A  clergyman  who 
has  such  vigorous  intentions  naturally  gets  a  little 
into  debt  at  starting  ;  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that 
he  will  live  in  the  meagre  style  of  a  man  who 
means  to  be  a  poor  curate  all  his  life  ;  and  if  the  few 
hundreds  Mr.  Timpson  advanced  towards  his  daugh- 
ter's fortune  did  not  suffice  for  the  purchase  of 
handsome  furniture,  together  with  a  stock  of  wine, 
a  grand  piano,  and  the  laying  out  of  a  superior 
flower-garden,  it  followed,  in  the  most  rigorous  man- 
ner, either  that  these  things  must  be  procured  by 
some  other  means,  or  else  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Stelling 
must  go  without  them,  —  which  last  alternative 
would  be  an  absurd  procrastination  of  the  fruits  of 
success,  where  success  was  certain.  Mr.  Stelling 
was  so  broad-chested  and  resolute  that  he  felt  equal 


SCHOOL-TIME.  189 

to  anything ;  he  would  become  celebrated  by  shak- 
ing the  consciences  of  his  hearers,  and  he  would  by 
and  by  edit  a  Greek  play,  and  invent  several  new 
readings.  He  had  not  yet  selected  the  play,  for 
having  been  married  little  more  than  two  years, 
his  leisure  time  had  been  much  occupied  with 
attentions  to  Mrs.  Stelling ;  but  he  had  told  that 
fine  woman  what  he  meant  to  do  some  day,  and 
she  felt  great  confidence  in  her  husband,  as  a  man 
who  understood  everything  of  that  sort. 

But  the  immediate  step  to  future  success  was  to 
bring  on  Tom  Tulliver  during  this  first  half-year; 
for,  by  a  singular  coincidence,  there  had  been  some 
negotiation  concerning  another  pupil  from  the  same 
neighbourhood,  and  it  might  further  a  decision  in 
Mr.  Stelling's  favour,  if  it  were  understood  that 
young  Tulliver,  who,  Mr.  Stelling  observed  in  con- 
jugal privacy,  was  rather  a  rough  cub,  had  made 
prodigious  progress  in  a  short  time.  It  was  on  this 
ground  that  he  was  severe  with  Tom  about  his 
lessons  :  he  was  clearly  a  boy  whose  powers  would 
never  be  developed  through  the  medium  of  the 
Latin  Grammar,  without  the  application  of  some 
sternness.  Not  that  Mr.  Stelling  was  a  harsh- 
tempered  or  unkind  man,  —  quite  the  contrary  :  he 
was  jocose  with  Tom  at  table,  and  corrected  his 
provincialisms  and  his  deportment  in  the  most 
playful  manner ;  but  poor  Tom  was  only  the  more 
cowed  and  confused  by  this  double  novelty,  for  he 
had  never  been  used  to  jokes  at  all  like  Mr.  Stelling's  ; 
and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  had  a  painful 
sense  that  he  was  all  wrong  somehow.  When  Mr. 
Stelling  said,  as  the  roast-beef  was  being  uncovered, 
"  Now,  Tulliver !  which  would  you  rather  decline, 
roast-beef  or  the  Latin  for  it  ? "  Tom,  to  whom  in 


190  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

his  coolest  moments  a  pun  would  have  been  a  hard 
nut,  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  embarrassed  alarm 
that  made  everything  dim  to  him  except  the  feeling 
that  he  would  rather  not  have  anything  to  do  with 
Latin  ;  of  course  he  answered,  "  Roast-beef,"  where- 
upon there  followed  much  laughter  and  some  prac- 
tical joking  with  the  plates,  from  which  Tom 
gathered  that  he  had  in  some  mysterious  way  re- 
fused beef,  and,  in  fact,  made  himself  appear  "a 
silly."  If  he  could  have  seen  a  fellow-pupil  under- 
go these  painful  operations  and  survive  them  in 
good  spirits,  he  might  sooner  have  taken  them  as  a 
matter  of  course.  But  there  are  two  expensive 
forms  of  education,  either  of  which  a  parent  may 
procure  for  his  son  by  sending  him  as  solitary 
pupil  to  a  clergyman  :  one  is  the  enjoyment  of  the 
reverend  gentleman's  undivided  neglect ;  the  other 
is  the  endurance  of  the  reverend  gentleman's  undi- 
vided attention.  It  was  the  latter  privilege  for 
which  Mr.  Tulliver  paid  a  high  price  in  Tom's  ini- 
tiatory months  at  King's  Lorton. 

That  respectable  miller  and  malster  had  left  Tom 
behind,  and  driven  homeward  in  a  state  of  great 
mental  satisfaction.  He  considered  that  it  was  a 
happy  moment  for  him  when  he  had  thought  of 
asking  Riley's  advice  about  a  tutor  for  Tom.  Mr. 
Stelling's  eyes  were  so  wide  open,  and  he  talked 
in  such  an  off-hand,  matter-of-fact  way,  —  answering 
every  difficult  slow  remark  of  Mr.  Tulliver's  with, 
"  I  see,  my  good  sir,  I  see ; "  "  To  be  sure,  to  be 
sure;"  "  You  want  your  son  to  be  a  man  who  will 
make  his  way  in  the  world," — that  Mr.  Tulliver 
was  delighted  to  find  in  him  a  clergyman  whose 
knowledge  was  so  applicable  to  the  every-day  affairs 
of  this  life.  Except  Counsellor  Wylde,  whom  he 


SCHOOL-TIME.  191 

had  heard  at  the  last  sessions,  Mr.  Tulliver  thought 
the  Eev.  Mr.  Stelling  was  the  shrewdest  fellow  he 
had  ever  met  with,  —  not  unlike  Wylde,  in  fact :  he 
had  the  same  way  of  sticking  his  thumbs  in  the 
armholes  of  his  waistcoat.  Mr.  Tulliver  was  not 
by  any  means  an  exception  in  mistaking  brazenness 
for  shrewdness:  most  laymen  thought  Stelling 
shrewd,  and  a  man  of  remarkable  powers  generally : 
it  was  chiefly  by  his  clerical  brethren  that  he  was 
considered  rather  a  dull  fellow.  But  he  told  Mr. 
Tulliver  several  stories  about  "  Swing  "  and  incendi- 
arism, and  asked, his  advice  about  feeding  pigs  in  so 
thoroughly  secular  and  judicious  a  manner,  with  so 
much  polished  glibness  of  tongue,  that  the  miller 
thought,  here  was  the  very  thing  he  wanted  for 
Tom.  He  had  no  doubt  this  first-rate  man  was 
acquainted  with  every  branch  of  information,  and 
knew  exactly  what  Tom  must  learn  in  order  to 
become  a  match  for  the  lawyers,  —  which  poor  Mr. 
Tulliver  himself  did  not  know,  and  so  was  necessa- 
rily thrown  for  self-direction  on  this  wide  kind  of 
inference.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  laugh  at  him,  for  I 
have  known  much  more  highly  instructed  persons 
than  he  make  inferences  quite  as  wide,  and  not  at 
all  wiser. 

As  for  Mrs.  Tulliver,  —  finding  that  Mrs.  Stelling's 
views  as  to  the  airing  of  linen  and  the  frequent 
recurrence  of  hunger  in  a  growing  boy  entirely 
coincided  with  her  own ;  moreover,  that  Mrs.  Stell- 
ing, though  so  young  a  woman,  and  only  anticipat- 
ing her  second  confinement,  had  gone  through  very 
nearly  the  same  experience  as  herself  with  regard 
to  the  behaviour  and  fundamental  character  of  the 
monthly  nurse,  —  she  expressed  great  contentment 
to  her  husband,  when  they  drove  away,  at  leaving 


192  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Tom  with  a  woman  who,  in  spite  of  her  youth, 
seemed  quite  sensible  and  motherly,  and  asked 
advice  as  prettily  as  could  be. 

"  They  must  be  very  well  off,  though,"  said  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  "  for  everything  's  as  nice  as  can  be  all  over 
the  house,  and  that  watered  silk  she  had  on  cost  a 
pretty  penny.  Sister  Pullet  has  got  one  like  it." 

"  Ah,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  "  he 's  got  some  income 
besides  the  curacy,  I  reckon.  Perhaps  her  father 
allows  'em  something.  There 's  Tom  'ull  be  another 
hundred  to  him,  and  not  much  trouble  either,  by 
his  own  account :  he  says  teaching  comes  natural  to 
him.  That 's  wonderful,  now,"  added  Mr.  Tulliver, 
turning  his  head  on  one  side,  and  giving  his  horse 
a  meditative  tickling  on  the  flank. 

Perhaps  it  was  because  teaching  came  naturally 
to  Mr.  Stelling,  that  he  set  about  it  with  that  uni- 
formity of  method  and  independence  of  circum- 
stances which  distinguish  the  actions  of  animals 
understood  to  be  under  the  immediate  teaching  of 
nature.  Mr.  Broderip's  amiable  beaver,  as  that 
charming  naturalist  tells  us,  busied  himself  as 
earnestly  in  constructing  a  dam,  in  a  room  up  three 
pair  of  stairs  in  London,  as  if  he  had  been  laying 
his  foundation  in  a  stream  or  lake  in  Upper  Canada. 
It  was  "  Binny's "  function  to  build :  the  absence 
of  water  or  of  possible  progeny  was  an  accident  for 
which  he  was  not  accountable.  With  the  same 
unerring  instinct  Mr.  Stelling  set  to  work  at  his 
natural  method  of  instilling  the  Eton  Grammar  and 
Euclid  into  the  mind  of  Tom  Tulliver.  This,  he 
considered,  was  the  only  basis  of  solid  instruction : 
all  other  means  of  education  were  mere  charlatanism, 
and  could  produce  nothing  better  than  smatterers. 
fixed  on  this  firm  basis,  a  man  might  observe  the 


SCHOOL-TIME.  193 

display  of  various  or  special  knowledge  made  by 
irregularly  educated  people  with  a  pitying  smile: 
all  that  sort  of  thing  was  very  well,  but  it  was 
impossible  these  people  could  form  sound  opinions. 
In  holding  this  conviction  Mr.  Stelling  was  not 
biassed,  as  some  tutors  have  been,  by  the  excessive 
accuracy  or  extent  of  his  own  scholarship ;  and  as 
to  his  views  about  Euclid,  no  opinion  could  have 
been  freer  from  personal  partiality.  Mr.  Stelling 
was  very  far  from  being  led  astray  by  enthusiasm, 
either  religious  or  intellectual ;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  had  no  secret,  belief  that  everything  was  humbug. 
He  thought  religion  was  a  very  excellent  thing,  and 
Aristotle  a  great  authority,  and  deaneries  and  pre- 
bends useful  institutions,  and  Great  Britain  the 
providential  bulwark  of  Protestantism,  and  faith 
in  the  unseen  a  great  support  to  afflicted  minds :  he 
believed  in  all  these  things,  as  a  Swiss  hotel-keeper 
believes  in  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  around  him, 
and  in  the  pleasure  it  gives  to  artistic  visitors.  And 
in  the  same  way  Mr.  Stelling  believed  in  his  method 
of  education :  he  had  no  doubt  that  he  was  doing 
the  very  best  thing  for  Mr.  Tulliver's  boy.  Of 
course,  when  the  miller  talked  of  "  mapping  "  and 
"summing"  in  a  vague  and  diffident  manner,  Mr. 
Stelling  had  set  his  mind  at  rest  by  an  assurance 
that  he  understood  what  was  wanted ;  for  how  was 
it  possible  the  good  man  could  form  any  reasonable 
judgment  about  the  matter?  Mr.  Stelling's  duty 
was  to  teach  the  lad  in  the  only  right  way,  —  indeed, 
he  knew  no  other :  he  had  not  wasted  his  time  in 
the  acquirement  of  anything  abnormal. 

He  very  soon  set  down  poor  Tom  as  a  thoroughly 
stupid  lad ;  for  though  by  hard  labour  he  could  get 
particular  declensions  into  his  brain,  anything  so 

VOL.  I.  —  13 


I94  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

abstract  as  the  relation  between  cases  and  termina- 
tions could  by  no  means  get  such  a  lodgment  there 
as  to  enable  him  to  recognize  a  chance  genitive  or 
dative.  This  struck  Mr.  Stelling  as  something  more 
than  natural  stupidity :  he  suspected  obstinacy,  or, 
at  any  rate,  indifference ;  and  lectured  Tom  severely 
on  his  want  of  thorough  application.  "  You  feel  no 
interest  in  what  you're  doing,  sir,"  Mr.  Stelling 
would  say,  and  the  reproach  was  painfully  true. 
Tom  had  never  found  any  difficulty  in  discerning  a 
pointer  from  a  setter,  when  once  he  had  been  told 
the  distinction,  and  his  perceptive  powers  were  not 
at  all  deficient.  I  fancy  they  were  quite  as  strong 
as  those  of  the  Kev.  Mr.  Stelling;  for  Tom  could 
predict  with  accuracy  what  number  of  horses  were 
cantering  behind  him,  he  could  throw  a  stone  right 
into  the  centre  of  a  given  ripple,  he  could  guess  to 
a  fraction  how  many  lengths  of  his  stick  it  would 
take  to  reach  across  the  playground,  and  could 
draw  almost  perfect  squares  on  his  slate  without 
any  measurement.  But  Mr.  Stelling  took  no  note 
of  these  things :  he  only  observed  that  Tom's  facul- 
ties failed  him  before  the  abstractions  hideously 
symbolized  to  him  in  the  pages  of  the  Eton  Gram- 
mar, and  that  he  was  in  a  state  bordering  on  idiocy 
with  regard  to  the  demonstration  that  two  given 
triangles  must  be  equal,  —  though  he  could  discern 
with  great  promptitude  and  certainty  the  fact  that 
they  were  equal.  Whence  Mr.  Stelling  concluded 
that  Tom's  brain  being  peculiarly  impervious  to  ety- 
mology and  demonstrations,  was  peculiarly  in  need 
of  being  ploughed  and  harrowed  by  these  patent 
implements :  it  was  his  favourite  metaphor,  that  the 
classics  and  geometry  constituted  that  culture  of 
the  mind  which  prepared  it  for  the  reception  of 


SCHOOL-TIME.  195 

any  subsequent  crop.  I  say  nothing  against  Mr. 
Stelling's  theory  :  if  we  are  to  have  one  regimen  for 
all  minds,  his  seems  to  me  as  good  as  any  other.  I 
only  know  it  turned  out  as  uncomfortably  for  Tom 
Tulliver  as  if  he  had  been  plied  with  cheese  in  order 
to  remedy  a  gastric  weakness  which  prevented  him 
from  digesting  it.  It  is  astonishing  what  a  different 
result  one  gets  by  changing  the  metaphor !  Once 
call  the  brain  an  intellectual  stomach,  and  one's 
ingenious  conception  of  the  classics  and  geometry 
as  ploughs  and  harrows  seems  to  settle  nothing. 
But  then  it  is  open  to  some  one  else  to  follow  great 
authorities,  "and  call  the  mind  a  sheet  of  white  paper 
or  a  mirror,  in  which  case  one's  knowledge  of  the 
digestive  process  becomes  quite  irrelevant.  It  was 
doubtless  an  ingenious  idea  to  call  the  camel  the 
ship  of  the  desert,  but  it  would  hardly  lead  one  far 
in  training  that  useful  beast.  0  Aristotle !  if  you 
had  had  the  advantage  of  being  "the  freshest 
modern "  instead  of  the  greatest  ancient,  would 
you  not  have  mingled  your  praise  of  metaphorical 
speech,  as  a  sign  of  high  intelligence,  with  a  lamen- 
tation that  intelligence  so  rarely  shows  itself  in 
speech  without  metaphor,  —  that  we  can  so  seldom 
declare  what  a  thing  is,  except  by  saying  it  is 
something  else? 

Tom  Tulliver,  being  abundant  in  no  form  of 
speech,  did  not  use  any  metaphor  to  declare  his 
views  as  to  the  nature  of  Latin :  he  never  called  it 
an  instrument  of  torture ;  and  it  was  not  until  he 
had  got  on  some  way  in  the  next  half-year,  and  in 
the  Delectus,  that  he  was  advanced  enough  to  call 
it  a  "  bore "  and  "  beastly  stuff."  At  present,  in 
relation  to  this  demand  that  he  should  learn  Latin 
declensions  and  conjugations,  Tom  was  in  a  state 


196  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

of  as  blank  unimaginativeness  concerning  the  cause 
and  tendency  of  his  sufferings,  as  if  he  had  been 
an  innocent  shrewmouse  imprisoned  in  the  split 
trunk  of  an  ash-tree  in  order  to  cure  lameness  in 
cattle.  It  is  doubtless  almost  incredible  to  in- 
structed minds  of  the  present  day  that  a  boy  of 
twelve,  not  belonging  strictly  to  "  the  masses,"  who 
are  now  understood  to  have  the  monopoly  of  mental 
darkness,  should  have  had  no  distinct  idea  how 
there  came  to  be  such  a  thing  as  Latin  on  this 
earth  ;  yet  so  it  was  with  Tom.  It  would  have 
taken  a  long  while  to  make  conceivable  to  him  that 
there  ever  existed  a  people  who  bought  and  sold 
sheep  and  oxen,  and  transacted  the  every-day  affairs 
of  life,  through  the  medium  of  this  language,  and 
still  longer  to  make  him  understand  why  he  should 
be  called  upon  to  learn  it,  when  its  connection  with 
those  affairs  had  become  entirely  latent.  So  far  as 
Tom  had  gained  any  acquaintance  with  the  Romans 
at  Mr.  Jacobs's  academy,  his  knowledge  was  strictly 
correct,  but  it  went  no  farther  than  the  fact  that 
they  were  "  in  the  New  Testament ; "  and  Mr. 
Stelling  was  not  the  man  to  enfeeble  and  emascu- 
late his  pupil's  mind  by  simplifying  and  explaining, 
or  to  reduce  the  tonic  effect  of  etymology  by  mixing 
it  with  smattering,  extraneous  information,  such  as 
is  given  to  girls. 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  under  this  vigorous  treatment 
Tom  became  more  like  a  girl  than  he  had  ever  been 
in  his  life  before.  He  had  a  large  share  of  pri  ie, 
which  had  hitherto  found  itself  very  comfortable 
in  the  world,  despising  Old  Goggles,  and  reposing 
in  the  sense  of  unquestioned  rights ;  but  now  this 
same  pride  met  with  nothing  but  bruises  and  crush- 
ings.  Tom  was  too  clear-sighted  not  to  be  aware 


SCHOOL-TIME.  197 

that  Mr.  Stelling's  standard  of  things  was  quite 
different,  was  certainly  something  higher  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  than  that  of  the  people  he  had 
been  living  amongst,  and  that,  brought  in  contact 
with  it,  he,  Tom  Tulliver,  appeared  uncouth  and 
stupid :  he  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  this,  and 
his  pride  got  into  an  uneasy  condition  which  quite 
nullified  his  boyish  self-satisfaction,  and  gave  him 
something  of  the  girl's  susceptibility.  He  was  of  a 
very  firm,  not  to  say  obstinate  disposition,  but  there 
was  no  brute-like  rebellion  and  recklessness  in  his 
nature :  the  human  sensibilities  predominated,  and 
if  it  had  occurred  to  him  that  he  could  enable  him- 
self to  show  some  quickness  at  his  lessons,  and  so 
acquire  Mr.  Stelling's  approbation,  by  standing  on 
one  leg  for  an  inconvenient  length  of  time,  or  rap- 
ping his  head  moderately  against  the  wall,  or  any 
voluntary  action  of  that  sort,  he  would  certainly 
have  tried  it.  But  no  —  Tom  had  never  heard 
that  these  measures  would  brighten  the  understand- 
ing, or  strengthen  the  verbal  memory ;  and  he  was 
not  given  to  hypothesis  and  experiment.  It  did 
occur  to  him  that  he  could  perhaps  get  some  help 
by  praying  for  it ;  but  as  the  prayers  he  said  every 
evening  were  forms  learned  by  heart,  he  rather 
shrank  from  the  novelty  and  irregularity  of  intro- 
ducing an  extempore  passage  on  a  topic  of  petition 
for  which  he  was  not  aware  of  any  precedent.  But 
one  day,  when  he  had  broken  down,  for  the  fifth 
time,  in  the  supines  of  the  third  conjugation,  and 
Mr.  Stelling,  convinced  that  this  must  be  careless- 
ness, since  it  transcended  the  bounds  of  possible 
stupidity,  had  lectured  him  very  seriously,  pointing 
out  that  if  he  failed  to  seize  the  present  golden 
opportunity  of  learning  supines,  he  would  have  to 


198  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

regret  it  when  he  became  a  man,  —  Tom,  more 
miserable  than  usual,  determined  to  try  his  sole 
resource ;  and  that  evening,  after  his  usual  form  of 
prayer  for  his  parents  and  "little  sister"  (he  had 
begun  to  pray  for  Maggie  when  she  was  a  baby), 
and  that  he  might  be  able  always  to  keep  God's 
commandments,  he  added,  in  the  same  low  whisper, 
"  and  please  to  make  me  always  remember  my 
Latin."  He  paused  a  little  to  consider  how  he 
should  pray  about  Euclid  —  whether  he  should  ask 
to  see  what  it  meant,  or  whether  there  was  any 
other  mental  state  which  would  be  more  applicable 
to  the  case.  But  at  last  he  added:  "And  make 
Mr.  Stelling  say  I  sha'n't  do  Euclid  any  more. 
Amen." 

The  fact  that  he  got  through  his  supines  with- 
out mistake  the  next  day  encouraged  him  to  perse- 
vere in  this  appendix  to  his  prayers,  and  neutralized 
any  scepticism  that  might  have  arisen  from  Mr. 
Stelling's  continued  demand  for  Euclid.  But  his 
faith  broke  down  under  the  apparent  absence  of  all 
help  when  he  got  into  the  irregular  verbs.  It 
seemed  clear  that  Tom's  despair  under  the  caprices 
of  the  present  tense  did  not  constitute  a  nodus 
worthy  of  interference;  and  since  this  was  the 
climax  of  his  difficulties,  where  was  the  use  of  pray- 
ing for  help  any  longer  ?  He  made  up  his  mind  to 
this  conclusion  in  one  of  his  dull,  lonely  evenings, 
which  he  spent  in  the  study,  preparing  his  lessons 
for  the  morrow.  His  eyes  were  apt  to  get  dim 
over  the  page,  —  though  he  hated  crying,  and  was 
ashamed  of  it :  he  could  n't  help  thinking  with  some 
affection  even  of  Spouncer,  whom  he  used  to  fight 
and  quarrel  with ;  he  would  have  felt  at  home  with 
Spouncer,  and  in  a  condition  of  superiority.  And 


SCHOOL-TIME.  199 

then  the  mill,  and  the  river,  and  Yap  pricking  up  his 
ears,  ready  to  obey  the  least  sign  when  Tom  said, 
"  Hoigh  ! "  would  all  come  before  him  in  a  sort  of 
calenture,  when  his  fingers  played  absently  in  his 
pocket  with  his  great  knife  and  his  coil  of  whip- 
cord, and  other  relics  of  the  past.  Tom,  as  I  said, 
had  never  been  so  much  like  a  girl  in  his  life  be- 
fore, and  at  that  epoch  of  irregular  verbs  his  spirit 
was  further  depressed  by  a  new  means  of  mental 
development  which  had  been  thought  of  for  him 
out  of  school  hours.  Mrs.  Stelling  had  lately  had 
her  second  baby ;  and  as  nothing  could  be  more 
salutary  for  a  boy  than  to  feel  himself  useful,  Mrs. 
Stelling  considered  she  was  doing  Tom  a  service  by 
setting  him  to  watch  the  little  cherub  Laura,  while 
the  nurse  was  occupied  with  the  sickly  baby.  It 
was  quite  a  pretty  employment  for  Tom  to  take 
little  Laura  out  in  the  sunniest  hour  of  the  autumn 
day,  —  it  would  help  to  make  him  feel  that  Lorton 
Parsonage  was  a  home  for  him,  and  that  he  was 
one  of  the  family.  The  little  cherub  Laura,  not 
being  an  accomplished  walker  at  present,  had  a 
ribbon  fastened  round  her  waist,  by  which  Tom 
held  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  little  dog  during  the 
minutes  in  which  she  chose  to  walk  ;  but  as  these 
were  rare,  he  was  for  the  most  part  carrying  this 
fine  child  round  and  round  the  garden,  within  sight 
of  Mrs.  Stelling's  window,  —  according  to  orders. 
If  any  one  considers  this  unfair  and  even  oppressive 
towards  Tom,  I  beg  him  to  consider  that  there  are 
feminine  virtues  which  are  with  difficulty  combined, 
even  if  they  are  not  incompatible.  When  the  wife 
of  a  poor  curate  contrives,  under  all  her  disadvan- 
tages, to  dress  extremely  well,  and  to  have  a  style 
of  coiffure  which  requires  that  her  nurse  shall  oc- 


200  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

casionally  officiate  as  lady's-maid,  —  when,  more- 
over, her  dinner-parties  and  her  drawing-room  show 
that  effort  at  elegance  and  completeness  of  appoint- 
ment to  which  ordinary  women  might  imagine  a 
large  income  necessary,  it  would  be  unreasonable  to 
expect  of  her  that  she  should  employ  a  second  nurse, 
or  even  act  as  a  nurse  herself.  Mr.  Stelling  knew 
better :  he  saw  that  his  wife  did  wonders  already, 
and  was  proud  of  her :  it  was  certainly  not  the  best 
thing  in  the  world  for  young  Tulliver's  gait  to  carry 
a  heavy  child,  but  he  had  plenty  of  exercise  in  long 
walks  with  himself,  and  next  half-year  Mr.  Stelling 
would  see  about  having  a  drilling-master.  Among 
the  many  means  whereby  Mr.  Stelling  intended  to 
be  more  fortunate  than  the  bulk  of  his  fellow-men, 
he  had  entirely  given  up  that  of  having  his  own 
way  in  his  own  house.  What  then  ?  He  had  married 
"  as  kind  a  little  soul  as  ever  breathed,"  according 
to  Mr.  Riley,  who  had  been  acquainted  with  Mrs. 
Stelling's  blond  ringlets  and  smiling  demeanour 
throughout  her  maiden  life,  and  on  the  strength  of 
that  knowledge  would  have  been  ready  any  day  to 
pronounce  that  whatever  domestic  differences  might 
arise  in  her  married  life  must  be  entirely  Mr. 
Stelling's  fault. 

If  Tom  had  had  a  worse  disposition,  he  would 
certainly  have  hated  the  little  cherub  Laura,  but 
he  was  too  kind-hearted  a  lad  for  that,  —  there  was 
too  much  in  him  of  the  fibre  that  turns  to  true 
manliness,  and  to  protecting  pity  for  the  weak.  I 
am  afraid  he  hated  Mrs.  Stelling,  and  contracted 
a  lasting  dislike  to  pale  blond  ringlets  and  broad 
plaits,  as  directly  associated  with  haughtiness  of 
manner,  and  a  frequent  reference  to  other  people's 
"  duty."  But  he  could  n't  help  playing  with  little 


SCHOOL-TIME.  201 

Laura,  and  liking  to  amuse  her ;  he  even  sacrificed 
his  percussion-caps  for  her  sake,  in  despair  of  their 
ever  serving  a  greater  purpose,  —  thinking  the  small 
flash  and  bang  would  delight  her,  and  thereby  draw- 
ing down  on  himself  a  rebuke  from  Mrs.  Stelling 
for  teaching  her  child  to  play  with  fire.  Laura  was 
a  sort  of  playfellow,  —  and,  oh,  how  Tom  longed  for 
playfellows !  In  his  secret  heart  he  yearned  to 
have  Maggie  with  him,  and  was  almost  ready  to 
dote  on  her  exasperating  acts  of  forgetfulness ; 
though,  when  he  was  at  home,  he  always  repre- 
sented it  as  a  great  favour  on  his  part  to  let  Maggie 
trot  by  his  side  on  his  pleasure  excursions. 

And  before  this  dreary  half-year  was  ended,  Mag- 
gie actually  came.  Mrs.  Stelling  had  given  a  gen- 
eral invitation  for  the  little  girl  to  come  and  stay 
with  her  brother; 'so  when  Mr.  Tulliver  drove  over 
to  King's  Lorton  late  in  October,  Maggie  came  too, 
with  the  sense  that  she  was  taking  a  great  journey, 
and  beginning  to  see  the  world.  It  was  Mr.  Tulli- 
ver's  first  visit  to  see  Tom,  for  the  lad  must  learn 
not  to  think  too  much  about  home. 

"  Well,  my  lad,"  he  said  to  Tom,  when  Mr.  Stel- 
ling had  left  the  room  to  announce  the  arrival  to 
his  wife,  and  Maggie  had  begun  to  kiss  Tom  freely, 
"  you  look  rarely  !  School  agrees  with  you." 

Tom  wished  he  had  looked  rather  ill. 

"  I  don't  think  I  am  well,  father,"  said  Tom ;  "  I 
wish  you  'd  ask  Mr.  Stelling  not  to  let  ine  do 
Euclid,  —  it  brings  on  the  toothache,  I  think." 

(The  toothache  was  the  only  malady  to  which 
Tom  had  ever  been  subject.) 

"Euclid,  my  lad,  —  why,  what's  that?"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know ;  it 's  definitions,  and  axioms, 


202  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  triangles,  and  things.  It 's  a  book  I  've  got  to 
learn  in,  —  there  's  no  sense  in  it." 

"  Go,  go  ! "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  reprovingly,  "  you 
mustn't  say  so.  You  must  learn  what  your  mas- 
ter tells  you.  He  knows  what  it 's  right  for  you  to 
learn." 

"  /  'II  help  you  now,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  with  a 
little  air  of  patronizing  consolation.  "  1  'm  come  to 
stay  ever  so  long,  if  Mrs.  Stelling  asks  me.  I  've 
brought  my  box  and  my  pinafores,  haven't  I, 
father?" 

"  You  help  me,  you  silly  little  thing  ! "  said  Tom, 
in  such  high  spirits  at  this  announcement  that  he 
quite  enjoyed  the  idea  of  confounding  Maggie  by 
showing  her  a  page  of  Euclid.  "I  should  like  to 
see  you  doing  one  of  my  lessons  !  Why,  I  learn 
Latin  too  !  Girls  never  learn  such  things.  They  're 
too  silly." 

"  I  know  what  Latin  is  very  well,"  said  Mag- 
gie, confidently.  "Latin  's  a  language.  There  are 
Latin  words  in  the  Dictionary.  There  's  bonus,  a 
gift." 

"  Now,  you  're  just  wrong  there,  Miss  Maggie ! " 
said  Tom,  secretly  astonished.  "  You  think  you  're 
very  wise !  But  bonus  means  '  good,'  as  it  hap- 
pens, —  bonus,  bona,  bonum" 

"  Well,  that 's  no  reason  why  it  should  n't  mean 
'  gift,' "  said  Maggie,  stoutly.  "  It  may  mean  several 
things,  —  almost  every  word  does.  There 's  '  lawn,' 
—  it  means  the  grass-plot,  as  well  as  the  stuff 
pocket-handkerchiefs  are  made  of." 

"  Well  done,  little  'un,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  laugh- 
ing ;  while  Tom  felt  rather  disgusted  with  Maggie's 
knowingness,  though  beyond  measure  cheerful  at 
the  thought  that  she  was  going  to  stay  with 


SCHOOL-TIME.  203 

him.     Her  conceit  would  soon  be  overawed  by  the 
actual  inspection  of  his  books. 

Mrs.  Stelling,  in  her  pressing  invitation,  did  not 
mention  a  longer  time  than  a  week  for  Maggie's 
stay  ;  but  Mr.  Stelling,  who  took  her  between  his 
knees,  and  asked  her  where  she  stole  her  dark  eyes 
from,  insisted  that  she  must  stay  a  fortnight.  Mag- 
gie thought  Mr.  Stelling  was  a  charming  man,  and 
Mr.  Tulliver  was  quite  proud  to  leave  his  little 
wench  where  she  would  have  an  opportunity  of 
showing  her  cleverness  to  appreciating  strangers. 
So  it  was  agreed  that  she  should  not  be  fetched 
home  till  the  "end  of  the  fortnight. 

"  Now,  then,  come  with  me  into  the  study,  Mag- 
gie," said  Tom,  as  their  father  drove  away.  "  What 
do  you  shake  and  toss  your  head  now  for,  you 
silly  ? "  he  continued  ;  for  though  her  hair  was  now 
under  anew  dispensation,  and  was  brushed  smoothly 
behind  her  ears,  she  seemed  still  in  imagination  to 
be  tossing  it  out  of  her  eyes.  "  It  makes  you  look 
as  if  you  were  crazy." 

"  Oh,  I  can't  help  it,"  said  Maggie,  impatiently. 
"Don't  tease  me,  Tom.  Oh,  what  books!"  she 
exclaimed,  as  she  saw  the  bookcases  in  the  study. 
"  How  I  should  like  to  have  as  many  books  as 
that ! " 

"  Why,  you  could  n't  read  one  of  'em,"  said  Tom, 
triumphantly.  "They're  all  Latin." 

"  No,  they  are  n't,"  said  Maggie.  "  I  can  read 
the  back  of  this  .  .  .  'History  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.'  " 

"  Well,  what  does  that  mean  ?  You  don't  know," 
said  Tom,  wagging  his  head. 

"  But  I  could  soon  find  out,"  said  Maggie,  scorn- 
fully. 


204  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"Why,  how?" 

"  I  should  look  inside,  and  see  what  it  was  about." 

"  You  'd  better  not,  Miss  Maggie,"  said  Tom,  see- 
ing her  hand  on  the  volume.  "  Mr.  Stelling  lets 
nobody  touch  his  books  without  leave,  and  /  shall 
catch  it,  if  you  take  it  out." 

"  Oh,  very  well !  Let  me  see  all  your  books,  then," 
said  Maggie,  turning  to  throw  her  arms  round  Tom's 
neck,  and  rub  his  cheek  with  her  small  round  nose. 

Tom,  in  the  gladness  of  his  heart  at  having  dear 
old  Maggie  to  dispute  with  and  crow  over  again, 
seized  her  round  the  waist,  and  began  to  jump  with 
her  round  the  large  library  table.  Away  they  jumped 
with  more  and  more  vigour,  till  Maggie's  hair  flew 
from  behind  her  ears,  and  twirled  about  like  an 
animated  mop.  But  the  revolutions  round  the 
table  became  more  and  more  irregular  in  their 
sweep,  till  at  last  reaching  Mr.  Stelling's  reading- 
stand,  they  sent  it  thundering  down  with  its  heavy 
lexicons  to  the  floor.  Happily  it  was  the  ground- 
floor,  and  the  study  was  a  one-storied  wing  to  the- 
house,  so  that  the  downfall  made  no  alarming 
resonance,  though  Tom  stood  dizzy  and  aghast  for 
a  few  minutes,  dreading  the  appearance  of  Mr.  or 
Mrs.  Stelling. 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Maggie,"  said  Tom  at  last,  lifting  up 
the  stand,  "  we  must  keep  quiet  here,  you  know.  If 
we  break  anything,  Mrs.  Stelling  '11  make  us  cry 
peccavi." 

"  What 's  that  ? "  said  Maggie. 

"  Oh,  it 's  the  Latin  for  a  good  scolding,"  said  Tom, 
not  without  some  pride  in  his  knowledge. 

"  Is  she  a  cross  woman  ?  "  said  Maggie. 

"  I  believe  you ! "  said  Tom,  with  an  emphatic 
nod. 


SCHOOL-TIME.  205 

"I  think  all  women  are  crosser  than  men,"  said 
Maggie.  "  Aunt  Glegg  's  a  great  deal  crosser  than 
uncle  Glegg,  and  mother  scolds  me  more  than  father 
does." 

"  Well,  you  '11  be  a  woman  some  day,"  said  Tom, 
"  so  you  need  n't  talk." 

"  But  I  shall  be  a  clever  woman,"  said  Maggie, 
with  a  toss. 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say,  and  a  nasty  conceited  thing. 
Everybody  '11  hate  you." 

"But  you  oughtn't  to  hate  me,  Tom:  it'll  be 
very  wicked  of  you,  for  I  shall  be  your  sister." 

"  Yes ;  but  if  you  're  a  nasty  disagreeable  thing,  I 
shall  hate  you." 

"  Oh,  but,  Tom,  you  won't !  I  sha'n't  be  dis- 
agreeable. I  shall  be  very  good  to  you  —  and  I 
shall  be  good  to  everybody.  You  won't  hate  me 
really,  will  you,  Tom  ?  " 

"  Oh,  bother !  never  mind  !  Come,  it 's  time  for 
me  to  learn  my  lessons.  See  here !  what  I  Ve  got 
to  do,"  said  Tom,  drawing  Maggie  towards  him  and 
showing  her  his  theorem,  while  she  pushed  her  hair 
behind  her  ears,  and  prepared  herself  to  prove  her 
capability  of  helping  him  in  Euclid.  She  began  to 
read  with  full  confidence  in  her  own  powers,  but 
presently,  becoming  quite  bewildered,  her  face 
flushed  with  irritation.  It  was  unavoidable,  —  she 
must  confess  her  incompetency,  and  she  was  not 
fond  of  humiliation. 

"  It 's  nonsense  ! "  she  said,  "  and  very  ugly  stuff, 
—  nobody  need  want  to  make  it  out." 

"  Ah,  there  now,  Miss  Maggie  ! "  said  Tom,  draw- 
ing the  book  away,  and  wagging  his  head  at  her, 
"  you  see  you  're  not  so  clever  as  you  thought  you 
were." 


206  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Oh,"  said  Maggie,  pouting,  "  I  dare  say  I  could 
make  it  out,  if  I  'd  learned  what  goes  before,  as  you 
have." 

"But  that's  what  you  just  couldn't,  Miss  Wis- 
dom," said  Tom.  "  For  it 's  all  the  harder  when  you 
know  what  goes  before ;  for  then  you  've  got  to  say 
what  definition  3  is,  and  what  axiom  V.  is.  But 
get  along  with  you  now :  I  must  go  on  with  this. 
Here's  the  Latin  Grammar.  See  what  you  can 
make  of  that." 

Maggie  found  the  Latin  Grammar  quite  soothing 
after  her  mathematical  mortification  ;  for  she  de- 
lighted in  new  words,  and  quickly  found  that  there 
was  an  English  Key  at  the  end,  which  would  make 
her  very  wise  about  Latin,  at  slight  expense.  She 
presently  made  up  her  mind  to  skip  the  rules  in  the 
Syntax,  —  the  examples  became  so  absorbing.  These 
mysterious  sentences,  snatched  from  an  unknown 
context,  —  like  strange  horns  of  beasts,  and  leaves 
of  unknown  plants,  brought  from  some  far-off 
region,  —  gave  boundless  scope  to  her  imagination, 
and  were  all  the  more  fascinating  because  they  were 
in  a  peculiar  tongue  of  their  own,  which  she  could 
learn  to  interpret.  It  was  really  very  interesting,  — 
$he  Latin  Grammar  that  Tom  had  said  no  girls 
could  learn  ;  and  she  was  proud  because  she  found 
it  interesting.  The  most  fragmentary  examples  were 
her  favourites.  Mors  omnibus  est  communis  would 
have  been  jejune,  only  she  liked  to  know  the  Latin ; 
but  the  fortunate  gentleman  whom  every  one 
congratulated  because  he  had  a  son  "  endowed  with 
such  a  disposition "  afforded  her  a  great  deal  of 
pleasant  conjecture,  and  she  was  quite  lost  in  the 
"  thick  grove  penetrable  by  no  star,"  when  Toin 
called  out, — 


SCHOOL-TIME.  •    207 

"  Now,  then,  Magsie,  give  us  the  Grammar  ! " 

"  Oh,  Tom,  it 's  such  a  pretty  book  ! "  she  said,  as 
she  jumped  out  of  the  large  arm-chair  to  give  it 
him  ;  "  it 's  much  prettier  than  the  Dictionary.  I 
could  learn  Latin  very  soon.  I  don't  think  it 's  at 
all  hard." 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  Ve  been  doing,"  said  Tom., 
"  you  Ve  been  reading  the  English  at  the  end.  Any 
donkey  can  do  that." 

Tom  seized  the  book  and  opened  it  with  a  deter- 
mined and  business-like  air,  as  much  as  to  say  that 
he  had  a  lesson  to  learn  which  no  donkeys  would 
find  themselves  equal  to.  Maggie,  rather  piqued, 
turned  to  the  bookcases  to  amuse  herself  with 
puzzling  out  the  titles. 

Presently  Tom  called  to  her:  "Here,  Magsie, 
come  and  hear  if  I  can  say  this.  Stand  at  that  end 
of  the  table,  where  Mr.  Stelling  sits  when  he  hears 
me." 

Maggie  obeyed,  and  took  the  open  book. 

"  "Where  do  you  begin,  Tom  ? " 

"  Oh,  I  begin  at  Appellativa  arborum  because  I 
say  all  over  again  what  I  Ve  been  learning  this 
week." 

Tom  sailed  along  pretty  well  for  three  lines  ;  and 
Maggie  was  beginning  to  forget  her  office  of  prompter 
in  speculating  as  to  what  mas  could  mean,  which 
came  twice  over,  when  he  stuck  fast  at  Sunt  etiam 
volucrum. 

"  Don't  tell  me,  Maggie ;  Sunt  etiam  volucrum  .  .  . 
Sunt  etiam  volucrum  .  .  .  ut  ostrea,  cetus  —  " 

"  No,"  said  Maggie,  opening  her  mouth  and  shak- 
ing her  head. 

"Sunt  etiam  volucrum,"  said  Tom,  very  slowly, 
as  if  the  next  words  might  be  expected  to  come 


208  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

sooner  when  he  gave  them  this  strong  hint  that 
they  were  waited  for. 

"  C,  e,  u,"  said  Maggie,  getting  impatient. 

"  Oh,  I  know,  —  hold  your  tongue ! "  said  Tom. 
"  Ceu  passer,  hirundo  ;  Ferarum  .  .  .  ferarum  — 
Tom  took  his  pencil  and  made  several   hard  dots 
with  it  on  his  book-cover  .  .  .  "ferarum  —  " 

"  Oh  dear,  oh  dear,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  "  what  a 
time  you  are !  Ut  —  " 

"  Ut,  ostrea  —  " 

"  No,  no,"  said  Maggie,  "  ut,  tigris  —  " 

"  Oh  yes,  now  I  can  do,"  said  Tom ;  "  it  was 
tigris  vulpes,  I  'd  forgotten :  ut  tigris,  vulpes ;  et 
Pisciit.m" 

With  some  further  stammering  and  repetition, 
Tom  got  through  the  next  few  lines. 

"  Now  then,"  he  said,  "  the  next  is  what  I  Ve  just 
learnt  for  to-morrow.  Give  me  hold  of  the  book  a 
minute." 

After  some  whispered  gabbling,  assisted  by  the 
beating  of  his  fist  on  the  table,  Tom  returned  the 
book. 

" Mascula  nomina  in  a"  he  began. 

"  No,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  "  that  does  n't  come 
next.  It 's  Nomen  non  creskens  genittivo  —  " 

"  Creskens  genittivo  ! "  exclaimed  Tom,  with  a 
derisive  laugh,  for  Tom  had  learned  this  omitted 
passage  for  his  yesterday's  lesson,  and  a  young 
gentleman  does  not  require  an  intimate  or  exten- 
sive acquaintanca  with  Latin  before  he  can  feel  the 
pitiable  absurdity  of  a  false  quantity.  "  Creskens 
yenittivo  !  What  a  little  silly  you  are,  Maggie  ! " 

"  Well,  you  need  n't  laugh,  Tom,  for  you  did  n't 
remember  it  at  all  I  'ui  sure  it 's  spelt  so ;  how 
was  I  to  know  ? " 


SCHOOL-TIME.  209 

"  Phee-e-e-h !  I  told  you  girls  could  n't  learn 
Latin.  It 's  Nomen  non  crescens  genitivo" 

"  Very  well,  then,"  said  Maggie,  pouting.  "  I  can 
say  that  as  well  as  you  can.  And  you  don't  mind 
your  stops.  For  you  ought  to  stop  twice  as  long  at 
a  semicolon  as  you  do  at  a  comma,  and  you  make 
the  longest  stops  where  there  ought  to  be  no  stop 
at  all." 

"  Oh,  well,  don't  chatter.     Let  me  go  on." 

They  were  presently  fetched  to  spend  the  rest  of  the 
evening  in  the  drawing-room ;  and  Maggie  became 
so  animated  with  Mr.  Stelling,  who,  she  felt  sure, 
admired  her  cleverness,  that  Tom  was  rather  amazed 
and  alarmed  at  her  audacity.  But  she  was  suddenly 
subdued  by  Mr.  Stelling's  alluding  to  a  little  girl  of 
whom  he  had  heard  that  she  once  ran  away  to  the 
gypsies. 

"  What  a  very  odd  little  girl  that  must  be  !  "  said 
Mrs.  Stelling,  meaning  to  be  playful,  —  but  a  play- 
fulness that  turned  on  her  supposed  oddity  was  not 
at  all  to  Maggie's  taste.  She  feared  that  Mr.  Stel- 
ling, after  all,  did  not  think  much  of  her,  and  went 
to  bed  in  rather  low  spirits.  Mrs.  Stelling,  she  felt, 
looked  at  her  as  if  she  thought  her  hair  was  very 
ugly  because  it  hung  down  straight  behind. 

Nevertheless  it  was  a  very  happy  fortnight  to 
Maggie,  this  visit  to  Tom.  She  was  allowed  to  be 
in  the  study  while  he  had  his  lessons,  and  in  her 
various  readings  got  very  deep  into  the  examples  in 
the  Latin  Grammar.  The  astronomer  who  hated 
women  generally,  caused  her  so  much  puzzling  specu- 
lation that  she  one  day  asked  Mr.  Stelling  if  all 
astronomers  hated  women,  or  whether  it  was  only 
this  particular  astronomer.  But  forestalling  hi3 
answer,  she  said, — 

VOL.  I. —  14 


210  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  I  suppose  it 's  all  astronomers  :  because,  you 
know,  they  live  up  in  high  towers,  and  if  the  women 
came  there,  they  might  talk  and  hinder  them  from 
looking  at  the  stars." 

Mr.  Stelling  liked  her  prattle  immensely,  and 
they  were  on  the  best  terms.  She  told  Tom  she 
should  like  to  go  to  school  to  Mr.  Stelling,  as  he 
did,  and  learn  just  the  same  things.  She  knew  she 
could  do  Euclid,  for  she  had  looked  into  it  again, 
and  she  saw  what  ABC  meant :  they  were  the 
names  of  the  lines. 

"  I  'm  sure  you  could  n't  do  it,  now,"  said  Tom  ; 
"  and  I  '11  just  ask  Mr.  Stelling  if  you  could." 

"  I  don't  mind,"  said  the  little  conceited  minx. 
"  I  '11  ask  him  myself." 

"  Mr.  Stelling,"  she  said,  that  same  evening  when 
they  were  in  the  drawing-room,  "couldn't  I  do 
Euclid,  and  all  Tom's  lessons,  if  you  were  to  teach 
me  instead  of  him  ? " 

"  No ;  you  could  n't,"  said  Tom,  indignantly. 
"  Girls  can't  do  Euclid ;  can  they,  sir  ? " 

"  They  can  pick  up  a  little  of  everything,  I  dare 
say,"  said  Mr.  Stelling.  "  They  've  a  great  deal  of 
superficial  cleverness ;  but  they  could  n't  go  far  into 
anything.  They  're  quick  and  shallow." 

Tom,  delighted  with  this  verdict,  telegraphed  his 
triumph  by  wagging  his  head  at  Maggie,  behind 
Mr.  Stelling's  chair.  As  for  Maggie,  she  had  hardly 
ever  been  so  mortified.  She  had  been  so  proud  to 
be  called  "  quick "  all  her  little  life,  and  now  it 
appeared  that  this  quickness  was  the  brand  of  in- 
feriority. It  would  have  been  better  to  be  slow, 
like  Tom. 

"  Ha,  ha !  Miss  Maggie ! "  said  Tom,  when  they 
were  alone ;  "  you  see  it 's  not  such  a  fine  thing  to 


SCHOOL-TIME.  211 

be  quick.  You  '11  never  go  far  into  anything,  you 
know." 

And  Maggie  was  so  oppressed  by  this  dreadful 
destiny  that  she  had  no  spirit  for  a  retort. 

But  when  this  small  apparatus  of  shallow  quick- 
ness was  fetched  away  in  the  gig  by  Luke,  and  the 
the  study  was  once  more  quite  lonely  for  Tom,  he 
missed  her  grievously.  He  had  really  been  brighter, 
and  had  got  through  his  lessons  better,  since  she  had 
been  there  ;  and  she  had  asked  Mr.  Stelling  so  many 
questions  about  the  Roman  Empire,  and  whether 
there  really  ever  was  a  man  who  said,  in  Latin,  "  I 
would  not  buy  it  for  a  farthing  or  a  rotten  nut,"  or 
whether  that  had  only  been  turned  into  Latin,  that 
Tom  had  actually  come  to  a  dim  understanding  of 
the  fact  that  there  had  once  been  people  upon  the 
earth  who  were  so  fortunate  as  to  know  Latin  with- 
out learning  it  through  the  medium  of  the  Eton 
Grammar.  This  luminous  idea  was  a  great  addi- 
tion to  his  historical  acquirements  during  this  half- 
year,  which  were  otherwise  confined  to  an  epitomized 
history  of  the  Jews. 

But  the  dreary  half-year  did  come  to  an  end. 
How  glad  Tom  was  to  see  the  last  yellow  leaves 
fluttering  before  the  cold  wind !  The  dark  after- 
noons and  the  first  December  snow  seemed  to  him 
far  livelier  than  the  August  sunshine  ;  and  that  he 
might  make  himself  the  surer  about  the  flight  of 
the  days  that  were  carrying  him  homeward,  he 
stuck  twenty-one  sticks  deep  in  a  corner  of  the 
garden,  when  he  was  three  weeks  from  the  holi- 
days, and  pulled  one  up  every  day  with  a  great 
wrench,  throwing  it  to  a  distance  with  a  vigour  of 
will  which  would  have  carried  it  to  limbo  if  it  had 
been  in  the  nature  of  sticks  to  travel  so  far. 


212  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

But  it  was  worth  purchasing,  even  at  the  heavy 
price  of  the  Latin  Grammar,  —  the  happiness  of  see- 
ing the  bright  light  in  the  parlour  at  home,  as  the 
gig  passed  noiselessly  over  the  snow-covered  bridge ; 
the  happiness  of  passing  from  the  cold  air  to  the 
warmth  and  the  kisses  and  the  smiles  of  that  famil- 
iar hearth,  where  the  pattern  of  the  rug  and  the 
grate  and  the  fire-irons  were  "  first  ideas "  that  it 
was  no  more  possible  to  criticise  than  the  solidity 
and  extension  of  matter.  There  is  no  sense  of  ease 
like  the  ease  we  felt  in  those  scenes  where  we  were 
born,  where  objects  became  dear  to  us  before  we 
had  known  the  labour  of  choice,  and  where  the  outer 
world  seemed  only  an  extension  of  our  own  person- 
ality ;  we  accepted  and  loved  it  as  we  accepted  our 
own  sense  of  existence  and  our  own  limbs.  Very 
commonplace,  even  ugly,  that  furniture  of  our  early 
home  might  look  if  it  were  put  up  to  auction  ;  an 
improved  taste  in  upholstery  scorns  it ;  and  is  not 
the  striving  after  something  better  and  better  in 
our  surroundings,  the  grand  characteristic  that  dis- 
tinguishes man  from  the  brute,  —  or,  to  satisfy  a 
scrupulous  accuracy  of  definition,  that  distinguishes 
the  British  man  from  the  foreign  brute  ?  But 
heaven  knows  where  that  striving  might  lead  us, 
if  our  affections  had  not  a  trick  of  twining  round 
those  old  inferior  things,  —  if  the  loves  and  sanc- 
tities of  our  life  had  no  deep  immovable  roots  in 
memory.  One's  delight  in  an  elderberry  bush 
overhanging  the  confused  leafage  of  a  hedge- 
row bank,  as  a  more  gladdening  sight  than  the 
finest  cistus  or  fuchsia  spreading  itself  on  the  soft- 
est undulating  turf,  is  an  entirely  unjustifiable 
preference  to  a  nursery-gardener,  or  to  any  of  those 
severely  regulated  minds  who  are  free  from  the 


SCHOOL-TIME.  213 

weakness  of  any  attachment  that  does  not  rest  on 
a  demonstrable  superiority  of  qualities.  And  there 
is  no  better  reason  for  preferring  this  elderberry 
bush  than  that  it  stirs  an  early  memory,  —  that  it 
is  no  novelty  in  my  life,  speaking  to  me  merely 
through  my  present  sensibilities  to  form  and  colour, 
but  the  long  companion  of  my  existence,  that  wove 
itself  into  my  joys  when  joys  were  vivid. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

THE    CHRISTMAS    HOLIDAYS. 

FINE  old  Christmas,  with  the  snowy  hair  and  ruddy 
face,  had  done  his  duty  that  year  in  the  noblest 
fashion,  and  had  set  off  his  rich  gifts  of  warmth 
and  colour  with  all  the  heightening  contrast  of 
frost  and  snow. 

Snow  lay  on  the  croft  and  river-bank  in  undula- 
tions softer  than  the  limbs  of  infancy ;  it  lay  with 
the  neatliest  finished  border  on  every  sloping  roof, 
making  the  dark-red  gables  stand  out  with  a  new 
depth  of  colour ;  it  weighed  heavily  on  the  laurels 
and  fir-trees,  till  it  fell  from  them  with  a  shudder- 
ing sound ;  it  clothed  the  rough  turnip-field  with 
whiteness,  and  made  the  sheep  look  like  dark 
blotches:  the  gates  were  all  blocked  up  with  the 
sloping  drifts,  and  here  and  there  a  disregarded 
four-footed  beast  stood  as  if  petrified  "  in  unrecum- 
bent  sadness  ; "  there  was  no  gleam,  no  shadow,  for 
the  heavens,  too,  were  one  still,  pale  cloud,  —  no 
sound  or  motion  in  anything  but  the  dark  river  that 
flowed  and  moaned  like  an  unresting  sorrow.  But 
old  Christmas  smiled  as  he  laid  this  cruel-seeming 
spell  on  the  outdoor  world,  for  he  meant  to  light  up 
home  with  new  brightness,  to  deepen  all  the  richness 
of  indoor  colour,  and  give  a  keener  edge  of  delight 
to  the  warm  fragrance  of  food :  he  meant  to  prepare 
a  sweet  imprisonment  that  would  strengthen  the 
primitive  fellowship  of  kindred,  and  make  the  sun- 


SCHOOL-TIME.  215 

shine  of  familiar  human  faces  as  welcome  as  the 
hidden  day-star.  His  kindness  fell  but  hardly  on 
the  homeless,  —  fell  but  hardly  on  the  homes  where 
the  hearth  was  not  very  warm,  and  where  the  food 
had  little  fragrance  ;  where  the  human  faces  had  no 
sunshine  in  them,  but  rather  the  leaden,  blank-eyed 
gaze  of  unexpectant  want.  But  the  fine  old  season 
meant  well ;  and  if  he  has  not  learnt  the  secret 
how  to  bless  men  impartially,  it  is  because  his 
father  Time,  with  ever-unrelenting  purpose,  still 
hides  that  secret  in  his  own  mighty,  slow-beating 
heart. 

And  yet  this  Christmas  day,  in  spite  of  Tom's 
fresh  delight  in  home,  was  not,  he  thought,  some- 
how or  other,  quite  so  happy  as  it  had  always  been 
before.  The  red  berries  were  just  as  abundant  on 
the  holly,  and  he  and  Maggie  had  dressed  all  the 
windows  and  mantelpieces  and  picture-frames  on 
Christmas  eve  with  as  much  taste  as  ever,  wedding 
the  thick-set  scarlet  clusters  with  branches  of  the 
black-berried  ivy.  There  had  been  singing  under 
the  windows  after  midnight,  —  supernatural  singing, 
Maggie  always  felt,  in  spite  of  Tom's  contemptuous 
insistence  that  the  singers  were  old  Patch,  the 
parish  clerk,  and  the  rest  of  the  church  choir:  she 
trembled  with  awe  when  their  carolling  broke  in 
upon  her  dreams,  and  the  image  of  men  in  fustian 
clothes  was  always  thrust  away  by  the  vision  of 
angels  resting  on  the  parted  cloud.  The  midnight 
chant  had  helped  as  usual  to  lift  the  morning  above 
the  level  of  common  days ;  and  then  there  was  the 
smell  of  hot  toast  and  ale  from  the  kitchen  at  the 
breakfast-hour;  the  favourite  anthem,  the  green 
boughs,  and  the  short  sermon  gave  the  appropriate 
festal  character  to  the  church-going ;  and  aunt  and 


2i  6  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

uncle  Moss,  with  all  their  seven  children,  were  look- 
ing like  so  many  reflectors  of  the  bright  parlour-fire, 
when  the  church-goers  came  back,  stamping  the 
snow  from  their  feet.  The  plum-pudding  was  of 
the  same  handsome  roundness  as  ever,  and  came  in 
with  the  symbolic  blue  flames  around  it,  as  if  it 
had  been  heroically  snatched  from  the  nether  fires 
into  which  it  had  been  thrown  by  dyspeptic  Puri- 
tans ;  the  dessert  was  as  splendid  as  ever,  with  its 
golden  oranges,  brown  nuts,  and  the  crystalline 
light  and  dark  of  apple-jelly  and  damson  cheese: 
in  all  these  things  Christmas  was  as  it  had  always 
been  since  Tom  could  remember;  it  was  only  dis- 
tinguished, if  by  anything,  by  superior  sliding  and 
snowballs. 

Christmas  was  cheery,  but  not  so  Mr.  Tulliver. 
He  was  irate  and  defiant ;  and  Tom,  though  he 
espoused  his  father's  quarrels  and  shared  his  father's 
sense  of  injury,  was  not  without  some  of  the  feel- 
ing that  oppressed  Maggie  when  Mr.  Tulliver  got 
louder  and  more  angry  in  narration  and  assertion 
with  the  increased  leisure  of  dessert.  The  attention 
that  Tom  might  have  concentrated  on  his  nuts  and 
wine  was  distracted  by  a  sense  that  there  were 
rascally  enemies  in  the  world,  and  that  the  busi- 
ness of  grown-up  life  could  hardly  be  conducted 
without  a  good  deal  of  quarrelling.  Now,  Tom  was 
not  fond  of  quarrelling,  unless  it  could  soon  be  put 
an  end  to  by  a  fair  stand-up  fight  with  an  adversary 
whom  he  had  every  chance  of  thrashing ;  and  his 
father's  irritable  talk  made  him  uncomfortable, 
though  he  never  accounted  to  himself  for  the  feel- 
ing, or  conceived  the  notion  that  his  father  was 
faulty  in  this  respect. 

The  particular  embodiment  of  the  evil  principle 


SCHOOL-TIME.  217 

now  exciting  Mr.  Tulliver's  determined  resistance 
was  Mr.  Pivart,  who,  having  lands  higher  up  the 
Bipple,  was  taking  measures  for  their  irrigation, 
which  either  were,  or  would  be,  or  were  bound  to 
be  (on  the  principle  that  water  was  water),  an  in- 
fringement on  Mr.  Tulliver's  legitimate  share  of 
water-power.  Dix,  who  had  a  mill  on  the  stream, 
was  a  feeble  auxiliary  of  Old  Harry  compared  with 
Pivart.  Dix  had  been  brought  to  his  senses  by 
arbitration,  and  Wakem's  advice  had  not  carried 
him  far.  No:  Dix,  Mr.  Tulliver  considered,  had 
been  as  good  as  nowhere  in  point  of  law ;  and  in 
the  intensity  of  his  indignation  against  Pivart,  his 
contempt  for  a  baffled  adversary  like  Dix  began  to 
wear  the  air  of  a  friendly  attachment.  He  had  no 
male  audience  to-day  except  Mr.  Moss,  who  knew 
nothing,  as  he  said,  of  the  "  natur'  o'  mills,"  and 
could  only  assent  to  Mr.  Tulliver's  arguments  on  the 
a  priori  ground  of  family  relationship  and  mone- 
tary obligation ;  but  Mr.  Tulliver  did  not  talk  with 
the  futile  intention  of  convincing  his  audience,  — 
he  talked  to  relieve  himself ;  while  good  Mr.  Moss 
made  strong  efforts  to  keep  his  eyes  wide  open,  in 
spite  of  the  sleepiness  which  an  unusually  good 
dinner  produced  in  his  hard-worked  frame.  Mrs. 
Moss,  more  alive  to  the  subject,  and  interested  in 
everything  that  affected  her  brother,  listened  and 
put  in  a  word  as  often  as  maternal  preoccupations 
allowed. 

"  Why,  Pivart 's  a  new  name  hereabout,  brother, 
is  n't  it  ? "  she  said ;  "  he  did  n't  own  the  land  in 
father's  time,  nor  yours  either,  before  I  was  married." 

"  New  name  ?  Yes,  —  I  should  think  it  is  a  new 
name,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  with  angry  emphasis. 
"  Dorlcote  Mill 's  been  in  our  family  a  hundred 


2i8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

year  and  better,  and  nobody  ever  heard  of  a  Pivart 
meddling  with  the  river,  till  this  fellow  came  and 
bought  Bincome's  farm  out  of  hand,  before  anybody 
else  could  so  much  as  say  '  snap.'  But  1 11  Pivart 
him ! "  added  Mr.  Tulliver,  lifting  his  glass  with  a 
sense  that  he  had  defined  his  resolution  in  an 
unmistakable  manner. 

"  You  won't  be  forced  to  go  to  law  with  him,  I 
hope,  brother  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Moss,  with  some  anxiety. 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  be  forced  to ;  but  I 
know  what  I  shall  force  him  to,  with  his  dikes  and 
erigations,  if  there 's  any  law  to  be  brought  to  bear 
o'  the  right  side.  I  know  well  enough  who  's  at 
the  bottom  of  it ;  he  's  got  Wakem  to  back  him 
and  egg  him  on.  I  know  Wakem  tells  him  the 
law  can't  touch  him  for  it,  but  there  's  folks  can 
handle  the  law  besides  Wakem.  It  takes  a  big  ras- 
kil  to  beat  him ;  but  there 's  bigger  to  be  found,  as 
know  more  o'  th"  ins  and  outs  o'  the  law,  else  how 
came  Wakem  to  lose  Brumley's  suit  for  him  ? " 

Mr.  Tulliver  was  a  strictly  honest  man,  and 
proud  of  being  honest,  but  he  considered  that  in 
law  the  ends  of  justice  could  only  be  achieved  by 
employing  a  stronger  knave  to  frustrate  a  weaker. 
Law  was  a  sort  of  cock-fight,  in  which  it  was  the 
business  of  injured  honesty  to  get  a  game  bird  with 
the  best  pluck  and  the  strongest  spurs. 

"  Gore  's  no  fool,  —  you  need  n't  tell  me  that,"  he 
observed  presently,  in  a  pugnacious  tone,  as  if  poor 
Gritty  had  been  urging  that  lawyer's  capabilities ; 
"  but,  you  see,  he  is  n't  up  to  the  law  as  Wakem  is. 
And  water 's  a  very  particular  thing,  —  you  can't  pick 
it  up  with  a  pitchfork.  That 's  why  it 's  been  nuts 
to  Old  Harry  and  the  lawyers.  It 's  plain  enough 
what 's  the  rights  and  the  wrongs  of  water,  if  you 


SCHOOL-TIME.  219 

look  at  it  straight-forrard ;  for  a  river 's  a  river,  and 
if  you  Ve  got  a  mill,  you  must  have  water  to  turn 
it;  and  it's  no  use  telling  me  Pivart's  erigation 
and  nonsense  won't  stop  my  wheel :  I  know  what 
belongs  to  water  better  than  that.  Talk  to  me  o' 
what  th'  engineers  say !  I  say  it 's  common  sense, 
as  Pivart's  dikes  must  do  me  an  injury.  But  if 
that 's  their  engineering,  I  '11  put  Tom  to  it  by  and 
by,  and  he  shall  see  if  he  can't  find  a  bit  more 
sense  in  th'  engineering  business  than  what  that 
comes  to." 

Tom,  looking  round  with  some  anxiety  at  this 
announcement  of  his  prospects,  unthinkingly  with- 
drew a  small  rattle  he  was  amusing  Baby  Moss 
with,  whereupon  she,  being  a  baby  that  knew  her 
own  mind  with  remarkable  clearness,  instanta- 
neously expressed  her  sentiments  in  a  piercing  yell, 
and  was  not  to  be  appeased  even  by  the  restoration 
of  the  rattle,  feeling  apparently  that  the  original 
wrong  of  having  it  taken  from  her  remained  in  all 
its  force.  Mrs.  Moss  hurried  away  with  her  into 
another  room,  and  expressed  to  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who 
accompanied  her,  the  conviction  that  the  dear  child 
had  good  reasons  for  crying ;  implying  that  if  it 
was  supposed  to  be  the  rattle  that  baby  clamoured 
for,  she  was  a  misunderstood  baby.  The  thoroughly 
justifiable  yell  being  quieted,  Mrs.  Moss  looked  at 
her  sister-in-law  and  said, — 

"  I  'm  sorry  to  see  brother  so  put  out  about  this 
water  work." 

"  It 's  your  brother's  way,  Mrs.  Moss ;  I  'd  never 
anything  o'  that  sort  before  I  was  married,"  said 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  a  half-implied  reproach.  She 
always  spoke  of  her  husband  as  "  your  brother  "  to 
Mrs.  Moss  in  any  case  when  his  line  of  conduct 


220  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

was  not  matter  of  pure  admiration.  Amiable  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  who  was  never  angry  in  her  life,  had  yet 
her  mild  share  of  that  spirit  without  which  she 
could  hardly  have  been  at  once  a  Dodson  and  a 
woman.  Being  always  on  the  defensive  towards 
her  own  sisters,  it  was  natural  that  she  should  be 
keenly  conscious  of  her  superiority,  even  as  the 
weakest  Dodson,  over  a  husband's  sister,  who,  be- 
sides being  poorly  off,  and  inclined  to  "  hang  on  " 
her  brother,  had  the  good-natured  submissiveness 
of  a  large,  easy-tempered,  untidy,  prolific  woman, 
with  affection  enough  in  her  not  only  for  her  own 
husband  and  abundant  children,  but  for  any  number 
of  collateral  relations. 

"  I  hope  and  pray  he  won't  go  to  law,"  said  Mrs. 
Moss,  "  for  there 's  never  any  knowing  where  that  '11 
end.  And  the  right  does  n't  allays  win.  This  Mr. 
Pivart  's  a  rich  man,  by  what  I  can  make  out,  and 
the  rich  mostly  get  things  their  own  way." 

"As  to  that,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  stroking  her 
dress  down,  "  I  've  seen  what  riches  are  in  my  own 
family;  for  my  sisters  have  got  husbands  as  can 
afford  to  do  pretty  much  what  they  like.  But  I 
think  sometimes  I  shall  be  drove  off  my  head  with 
the  talk  about  this  law  and  erigation ;  and  my 
sisters  lay  all  the  fault  to  me,  for  they  don't  know 
what  it  is  to  marry  a  man  like  your  brother,  —  how 
should  they  ?  Sister  Pullet  has  her  own  way  from 
morning  till  night." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Moss,  "  I  don't  think  I  should 
like  my  husband  if  he  had  n't  got  any  wits  of  his 
own,  and  I  had  to  find  head-piece  for  him.  It 's  a 
deal  easier  to  do  what  pleases  one's  husband  than 
to  be  puzzling  what  else  one  should  do." 

"  If  people  come  to  talk  o'  doing  what  pleases 


SCHOOL-TIME.  221 

their  husbands,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  a  faint  imi- 
tation of  her  sister  Glegg,  "  I  'm  sure  your  brother 
might  have  waited  a  long  while  before  he  'd  have 
found  a  wife  that  'ud  have  let  him  have  his  say  in 
everything,  as  I  do.  It's  nothing  but  law  and 
erigation  now,  from  when  we  first  get  up  in  the 
morning  till  we  go  to  bed  at  night ;  and  I  never 
contradict  him ;  I  only  say,  '  Well,  Mr.  Tulliver,  do 
as  you  like ;  but  whativer  you  do,  don't  go  to  law.' " 

Mrs.  Tulliver,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  without 
influence  over  her  husband.  No  woman  is,  —  she 
can  always  incline  him  to  do  either  what  she 
wishes,  or  the  reverse ;  and  on  the  composite  impulses 
that  were  threatening  to  hurry  Mr.  Tulliver  into 
"law,"  Mrs.  Tulliver's  monotonous  pleading  had 
doubtless  its  share  of  force ;  it  might  even  be 
comparable  to  that  proverbial  feather  which  has 
the  credit  or  discredit  of  breaking  the  camel's  back ; 
though,  on  a  strictly  impartial  view,  the  blame 
ought  rather  to  lie  with  the  previous  weight  of 
feathers  which  had  already  placed  the  back  in  such 
imminent  peril  that  an  otherwise  innocent  feather 
could  not  settle  on  it  without  mischief.  Not  that 
Mrs.  Tiilliver's  feeble  beseeching  could  have  had 
this  feather's  weight  in  virtue  of  her  single  personal- 
ity; but  whenever  she  departed  from  entire  assent 
to  her  husband,  he  saw  in  her  the  representative  of 
the  Dodson  family  ;  and  it  was  a  guiding  principle 
with  Mr.  Tulliver,  to  let  the  Dodsons  know  that 
they  were  not  to  domineer  over  him,  or  —  more 
specifically  —  that  a  male  Tulliver  was  far  more 
than  equal  to  four  female  Dodsons,  even  though 
one  of  them  was  Mrs.  Glegg. 

But  not  even  a  direct  argument  from  that  typical 
Dodson  female  herself  against  his  going  to  law, 


222  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

could  have  heightened  his  disposition  towards  it  so 
much  as  the  mere  thought  of  Wakem,  continually 
freshened  by  the  sight  of  the  too  able  attorney  on 
market-days.  Wakem,  to  his  certain  knowledge, 
was  (metaphorically  speaking)  at  the  bottom  of 
Pivart's  irrigation  :  Wakem  had  tried  to  make  Dix 
stand  out,  and  go  to  law  about  the  dam ;  it  was 
unquestionably  Wakem  who  had  caused  Mr.  Tulli- 
ver  to  lose  the  suit  about  the  right  of  road  and  the 
bridge  that  made  a  thoroughfare  of  his  land  for  every 
vagabond  who  preferred  an  opportunity  of  damaging 
private  property  to  walking  like  an  honest  man 
along  the  high-road ;  all  lawyers  were  more  or  less 
rascals,  but  Wakem's  rascality  was  of  that  peculiarly 
aggravated  kind  which  placed  itself  in  opposition  to 
that  form  of  right  embodied  in  Mr.  Tulliver's  inter- 
ests and  opinions.  And  as  an  extra  touch  of  bitter- 
ness, the  injured  miller  had  recently,  in  borrowing 
the  five  hundred  pounds,  been  obliged  to  carry  a 
little  business  to  Wakem's  office  on  his  own  account. 
A  hook-nosed  glib  fellow  !  as  cool  as  a  cucumber,  — 
always  looking  so  sure  of  his  game  !  And  it  was 
vexatious  that  Lawyer  Gore  was  not  more  like  him, 
but  was  a  bald,  round-featured  man,  with  bland 
manners  and  fat  hands ;  a  game-cock  that  you 
would  be  rash  to  bet  upon  against  Wakem.  Gore 
was  a  sly  fellow ;  his  weakness  did  not  lie  on  the 
side  of  scrupulosity:  but  the  largest  amount  of 
winking,  however  significant,  is  not  equivalent  to 
seeing  through  a  stone  wall ;  and  confident  as  Mr. 
Tulliver  was  in  his  principle  that  water  was  water, 
and  in  the  direct  inference  that  Pivart  had  not  a 
leg  to  stand  on  in  this  affnir  of  irrigation,  he  had 
an  uncomfortable  suspicion  that  Wakem  had  more 
law  to  show  against  this  (rationally)  irrefragable 


SCHOOL-TIME.  223 

inference  than  Gore  could  show  for  it.  But  then, 
if  they  went  to  law,  there  was  a  chance  for  Mr. 
Tulliver  to  employ  Counsellor  Wylde  on  his  side, 
instead  of  having  that  admirable  bully  against  him ; 
and  the  prospect  of  seeing  a  witness  of  Wakem's 
made  to  perspire  arid  become  confounded,  as  Mr. 
Tulliver's  witness  had  once  been,  was  alluring  to 
the  love  of  retributive  justice. 

Much  rumination  had  Mr.  Tulliver  on  these  puz- 
zling subjects  during  his  rides  on  the  gray  horse,  — 
much  turning  of  the  head  from  side  to  side,  as  the 
scales  dipped  alternately ;  but  the  probable  result 
was  still  out  of  sight,  only  to  be  reached  through 
much  hot  argument  and  iteration  in  domestic  and 
social  life.  That  initial  stage  of  the  dispute  which 
consisted  in  the  narration  of  the  case  and  the 
enforcement  of  Mr.  Tulliver's  views  concerning  it 
throughout  the  entire  circle  of  his  connections 
would  necessarily  take  time,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  February,  when  Tom  was  going  to  school  again, 
there  were  scarcely  any  new  items  to  be  detected  in 
his  father's  statement  of  the  cnse  against  Pivart,  or 
any  more  specific  indication  of  the  measures  he  was 
bent  on  taking  against  that  rash  contravener  of  the 
principle  that  water  was  water.  Iteration,  like 
friction,  is  likely  to  generate  heat  instead  of  pro- 
gress, and  Mr.  Tulliver's  heat  was  certainly  more 
and  more  palpable.  If  there  had  been  no  new 
evidence  on  any  other  point,  there  had  been  new 
evidence  that  Pivart  was  as  "  thick  as  mud  "  with 
Wakem. 

"  Father,"  said  Tom,  one  evening  near  the  end  of 
the  holidays,  "  uncle  Glegg  says  Lawyer  Wakem  is 
going  to  send  his  son  to  Mr.  Stelling.  It  is  n't  true 
—  what  they  said  about  his  going  to  be  sent  to 


224  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

France.  You  won't  like  me  to  go  to  school  with 
Wakem's  son,  shall  you?" 

"It's  no  matter  for  that,  my  boy,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver;  "don't  you  learn  anything  bad  of  him, 
that 's  all.  The  lad  's  a  poor  deformed  creatur,  and 
takes  after  his  mother  in  the  face :  I  think  there 
is  n't  much  of  his  father  in  him.  It 's  a  sign  Wakem 
thinks  high  o'  Mr.  Stelling,  as  he  sends  his  son  to 
him ;  and  Wakem  knows  meal  from  bran." 

Mr.  Tulliver  in  his  heart  was  rather  proud  of  the 
fact  that  his  son  was  to  have  the  same  advantages 
as  Wakem's  :  but  Tom  was  not  at  all  easy  on  the 
point;  it  would  have  been  much  clearer  if  the 
lawyer's  son  had  not  been  deformed,  for  then  Tom 
would  have  had  the  prospect  of  pitching  into  him 
with  all  that  freedom  which  is  derived  from  a  high 
moral  sanction. 


CHAPTEK   III 

THE   NEW   SCHOOLFELLOW. 

IT  was  a  cold,  wet  January  day  on  which  Tom 
went  back  to  school ;  a  day  quite  in  keeping  with 
this  severe  phase  of  his  destiny.  If  he  had  not 
carried  in  his  pocket  a  parcel  of  sugar-candy  and  a 
small  Dutch  doll  for  little  Laura,  there  would  have 
been  no  ray  of  expected  pleasure  to  enliven  the 
general  gloom.  But  he  liked  to  think  how  Laura 
would  put  out  her  lips  and  her  tiny  hands  for  the 
bits  of  sugar-candy ;  and,  to  give  the  greater  keen- 
ness to  these  pleasures  of  imagination,  he  took  out 
the  parcel,  made  a  small  hole  in  the  paper,  and 
bit  off  a  crystal  or  two,  which  had  so  solacing  an 
effect  under  the  confined  prospect  and  damp  odours 
of  the  gig-umbrella,  that  he  repeated  the  process 
more  than  once  on  his  way. 

"  Well,  Tulliver,  we  're  glad  to  see  you  again," 
said  Mr.  Stelling,  heartily.  "  Take  off  your  wrap- 
pings and  come  into  the  study  till  dinner.  You  '11 
find  a  bright  fire  there,  and  a  new  companion." 

Tom  felt  in  an  uncomfortable  flutter  as  he  took 
off  his  woollen  comforter  and  other  wrappings.  He 
had  seen  Philip  Wakem  at  St.  Ogg's,  but  had  always 
turned  his  eyes  away  from  him  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. He  would  have  disliked  having  a  deformed 
boy  for  his  companion,  even  if  Philip  had  not  been 
the  son  of  a  bad  man.  And  Tom  did  not  see  how 
a  bad  man's  son  could  be  very  good.  His  own 

VOL.  I.  —  15 


226  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

father  was  a  good  man,  and  he  would  readily  have 
fought  any  one  who  said  the  contrary.  He  was  in 
a  state  of  mingled  embarrassment  and  defiance  as 
he  followed  Mr.  Stelling  to  the  study. 

"  Here  is  a  new  companion  for  you  to  shake  hands 
with,  Tulliver,"  said  that  gentleman  on  entering  the 
study,  —  "  Master  Philip  Wakem.  I  shall  leave  you 
to  make  acquaintance  by  yourselves.  You  already 
know  something  of  each  other,  I  imagine ;  for  you 
are  neighbours  at  home." 

Tom  looked  confused  and  awkward,  while  Philip 
rose  and  glanced  at  him  timidly.  Tom  did  not 
like  to  go  up  and  put  out  his  hand,  and  he  was  not 
prepared  to  say,  "  How  do  you  do  ? "  on  so  short 
a  notice. 

Mr.  Stelling  wisely  turned  away,  and  closed  the 
door  behind  him :  boys'  shyness  only  wears  off  in 
the  absence  of  their  elders. 

Philip  was  at  once  too  proud  and  too  timid  to 
walk  towards  Tom.  He  thought,  or  rather  felt, 
that  Tom  had  an  aversion  to  looking  at  him :  every 
one,  almost,  disliked  looking  at  him ;  and  his  de- 
formity was  more  conspicuous  when  he  walked. 
So  they  remained  without  shaking  hands  or  even 
speaking,  while  Tom  went  to  the  fire  and  warmed 
himself,  every  now  and  then  casting  furtive  glances 
at  Philip,  who  seemed  to  be  drawing  absently  first 
one  object  and  then  another  on  a  piece  of  paper  he 
had  before  him.  He  had  seated  himself  again,  and 
as  he  drew,  was  thinking  what  he  could  say  to  Tom, 
and  trying  to  overcome  his  own  repugnance  to 
making  the  first  advances. 

Tom  began  to  look  oftener  and  longer  at  Philip's 
face,  for  he  could  see  it  without  noticing  the  hump, 
and  it  was  really  not  a  disagreeable  face,  —  very 


SCHOOL-TIME.  227 

old-looking,  Tom  thought.  He  wondered  how 
much  older  Philip  was  than  himself.  An  anato- 
mist —  even  a  mere  physiognomist  —  would  have 
seen  that  the  deformity  of  Philip's  spine  was  not  a 
congenital  hump,  but  the  result  of  an  accident  in 
infancy ;  but  you  do  not  expect  from  Tom  any  ac- 
quaintance with  such  distinctions  :  to  him  Philip 
was  simply  a  humpback.  He  had  a  vague  notion 
that  the  deformity  of  Wakem's  son  had  some  relation 
to  the  lawyer's  rascality,  of  which  he  had  so  often 
heard  his  father  talk  with  hot  emphasis ;  and  he 
felt,  too,  a  half-admitted  fear  of  him  as  probably  a 
spiteful  fellow,  who,  not  being  able  to  fight  you, 
had  cunning  ways  of  doing  you  a  mischief  by  the 
sly.  There  was  a  humpbacked  tailor  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Mr.  Jacobs's  academy,  who  was  con- 
sidered a  very  unamiable  character,  and  was  much 
hooted  after  by  public-spirited  boys  solely  on  the 
ground  of  his  unsatisfactory  moral  qualities  ;  so  that 
Tom  was  not  without  a  basis  of  fact  to  go  upon. 
Still,  no  face  co'uld  be  more  unlike  that  ugly  tailor's 
than  this  melancholy  boy's  face:  the  brown  hair 
round  it  waved  and  curled  at  the  ends  like  a  girl's ; 
Tom  thought  that  truly  pitiable.  This  Wakem 
was  a  pale,  puny  fellow,  and  it  was  quite  clear  he 
would  not  be  able  to  play  at  anything  worth  speak- 
ing of ;  but  he  handled  his  pencil  in  an  enviable 
manner,  and  was  apparently  making  one  thing  after 
another  without  any  trouble.  What  was  he  draw- 
ing ?  Tom  was  quite  warm  now,  and  wanted  some- 
thing new  to  be  going  forward.  It  was  certainly 
more  agreeable  to  have  an  ill-natured  humpback  as  a 
companion  than  to  stand  looking  out  of  the  study 
window  at  the  rain,  and  kicking  his  foot  against 
the  washboard  in  solitude ;  something  would  hap- 


228  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

pen  every  day,  —  "a  quarrel  or  something ; "  and 
Tom  thought  he  should  rather  like  to  show  Philip 
that  he  had  better  not  try  his  spiteful  tricks  on 
him.  He  suddenly  walked  across  the  hearth,  and 
looked  over  Philip's  paper. 

"  Why,  that 's  a  donkey  with  panniers,  —  and  a 
spaniel,  and  partridges  in  the  corn  ! "  he  exclaimed, 
his  tongue  being  completely  loosed  by  surprise  and 
admiration.  "  Oh,  my  buttons !  I  wish  I  could 
draw  like  that.  I'm  to  learn  drawing  this  half, 
—  I  wonder  if  I  shall  learn  to  make  dogs  and 
donkeys ! " 

"Oh,  you  can  do  them  without  learning,"  said 
Philip ;  "  I  never  learned  drawing." 

"  Never  learned  ? "  said  Tom,  in  amazement. 
"Why,  when  I  make  dogs  and  horses  and  those 
things,  the  heads  and  the  legs  won't  come  right ; 
though  I  can  see  how  they  ought  to  be  very  well. 
I  can  make  houses,  and  all  sorts  of  chimneys, — 
chimneys  going  all  down  the  wall,  and  windows  in 
the  roof,  and  all  that.  But  I  dare  say  I  could  do 
dogs  and  horses  if  I  was  to  try  more,"  he  added, 
reflecting  that  Philip  might  falsely  suppose  that  he 
was  going  to  "  knock  under,"  if  he  were  too  frank 
about  the  imperfection  of  his  accomplishments. 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Philip,  "  it 's  very  easy.  You  've 
only  to  look  well  at  things,  and  draw  them  over 
and  over  again.  What  you  do  wrong  once,  you  can 
alter  the  next  time." 

"But  have  n't  you  been  taught  anything  ?"  said 
Tom,  beginning  to  have  a  puzzled  suspicion  that 
Philip's  crooked  back  might  be  the  source  of  re- 
markable faculties.  "  I  thought  you  'd  been  to 
Bchool  a  long  while." 

"  Yes,"  said  Philip,  smiling,   "  I  've  been  taught 


SCHOOL-TIME.  229 

Latin,  and  Greek,  and  mathematics,  —  and  writing 
and  such  things." 

"  Oh,  but  I  say,  you  don't  like  Latin,  though,  do 
you  ? "  said  Tom,  lowering  his  voice  confidentially. 

"  Pretty  well ;  I  don't  care  much  about  it,"  said 
Philip. 

"Ah,  but  perhaps  you  haven't  got  into  the 
Propria  quce  maribus,"  said  Tom,  nodding  his  head 
sideways,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  That  was  the  test :  it 
was  easy  talking  till  you  came  to  that" 

Philip  felt  some  bitter  complacency  in  the  prom- 
ising stupidity. of  this  well-made  active-looking  boy; 
but  made  polite  by  his  owrn  extreme  sensitiveness 
as  well  as  by  his  desire  to  conciliate,  he  checked  his 
inclination  to  laugh,  and  said  quietly,  — 

"  I  've  done  with  the  grammar ;  I  don't  learn  that 
any  more." 

"  Then  you  won't  have  the  same  lessons  as  I 
shall  ? "  said  Tom,  with  a  sense  of  disappointment. 

"  No ;  but  I  dare  say  I  can  help  you.  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  help  you  if  I  can." 

Tom  did  not  say  "  Thank  you,"  for  he  was  quite 
absorbed  in  the  thought  that  Wakem's  son  did  not 
seem  so  spiteful  a  fellow  as  might  have  been 
expected. 

"  I  say,"  he  said  presently,  "  do  you  love  your 
father?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Philip,  colouring  deeply ;  "  don't  you 
love  yours  ? " 

"  Oh  yes.  ...  I  only  wanted  to  know,"  said 
Tom,  rather  ashamed  of  himself,  now  he  saw  Philip 
colouring  and  looking  uncomfortable.  He  found 
much  difficulty  in  adjusting  his  attitude  of  mind 
towards  the  son  of  Lawyer  Wakem ;  and  it  had  oc- 
curred to  him  that  if  Philip  disliked  his  father, 


230  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

that  fact  might  go  some  way  towards  clearing  up 
liis  perplexity. 

"  Shall  you  learn  drawing  now  ? "  he  said,  by  way 
of  changing  the  subject. 

"No,"  said  Philip.  "My  father  wishes  me  to 
give  all  my  time  to  other  things  now." 

"  What !  Latin,  and  Euclid,  and  those  things  ? " 
said  Tom. 

"Yes,"  said  Philip,  who  had  left  off  using  his 
pencil,  and  was  resting  his  head  on  one  hand,  while 
Tom  was  leaning  forward  on  both  elbows,  and  look- 
ing with  increasing  admiration  at  the  dog  and  the 
donkey. 

"And  you  don't  mind  that?"  said  Tom,  with 
strong  curiosity. 

"  No ;  I  like  to  know  what  everybody  else  knows. 
I  can  study  what  I  like  by  arid  by." 

"  I  can't  think  why  anybody  should  learn  Latin," 
said  Tom.  "  It 's  no  good." 

"  It 's  part  of  the  education  of  a  gentleman,"  said 
Philip.  "  All  gentlemen  learn  the  same  things." 

"  What !  do  you  think  Sir  John  Crake,  the 
master  of  the  harriers,  knows  Latin  ? "  said  Tom, 
who  had  often  thought  he  should  like  to  resemble 
Sir  John  Crake. 

"  He  learnt  it  when  he  was  a  boy,  of  course,"  said 
Philip.  "  But  I  dare  say  he  's  forgotten  it." 

"Oh,  well,  I  can  do  that,  then,"  said  Tom,  not 
with  any  epigrammatic  intention,  but  with  serious 
satisfaction  at  the  idea  that,  as  far  as  Latin  was 
concerned,  there  was  no  hindrance  to  his  resem- 
bling Sir  John  Crake.  "  Only  you  're  obliged  to 
remember  it  while  you  're  at  school,  else  you  Ve  got 
to  learn  ever  so  many  lines  of  '  Speaker.'  Air. 
Stelling  's  very  particular,  —  did  you  know  ?  He  '11 


SCHOOL-TIME.  231 

have  you  up  ten  times  if  you  say  *  nam '  for  '  jam ' 
...  he  won't  let  you  go  a  letter  wrong,  /  can  tell 
you." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mind,"  said  Philip,  unable  to  choke 
a  laugh ;  "  I  can  remember  things  easily.  And 
there  are  some  lessons  I  'm  very  fond  of.  I  'm  very 
fond  of  Greek  history,  and  everything  about  the 
Greeks.  I  should  like  to  have  been  a  Greek  and 
fought  the  Persians,  and  then  have  come  home  and 
have  written  tragedies,  or  else  have  been  listened  to 
by  everybody  for  my  wisdom,  like  Socrates,  and  have 
died  a  grand  death."  (Philip,  you  perceive,  was  not 
without  a  wish  to  impress  the  well-made  barbarian 
with  a  sense  of  his  mental  superiority.) 

« Why,  were  the  Greeks  great  fighters  ? "  said 
Tom,  who  saw  a  vista  in  this  direction.  "  Is  there 
anything  like  David,  and  Goliath,  and  Samson,  in 
the  Greek  history  ?  Those  are  the  only  bits  I  like 
in  the  history  of  the  Jews." 

"  Oh,  there  are  very  fine  stories  of  that  sort  about 
the  Greeks,  —  about  the  heroes  of  early  times  who 
killed  the  wild  beasts,  as  Samson  did.  And  in  the 
'  Odyssey '  —  that 's  a  beautiful  poem  —  there 's  a 
more  wonderful  giant  than  Goliath,  —  Polypheme, 
who  had  only  one  eye  in  the  middle  of  his  fore- 
head ;  and  Ulysses,  a  little  fellow  but  very  wise 
and  cunning,  got  a  red-hot  pine-tree  and  stuck  it 
into  this  one  eye,  and  made  him  roar  like  a  thou- 
sand bulls." 

"  Oh,  what  fun  ! "  said  Tom,  jumping  away  from  the 
table,  and  stamping  first  with  one  leg  and  then  the 
other.  "  I  say,  can  you  tell  me  all  about  those 
stories  ?  Because  I  sha'n't  learn  Greek,  you  know. 
.  .  .  Shall  I  ? "  he  added,  pausing  in  his  stamping, 
with  a  sudden  alarm,  lest  the  contrary  might  be  pos- 


232  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

sible.  "Does  every  gentleman  learn  Greek?  .  .  . 
Will  Mr.  Stelling  make  me  begin  with  it,  do  you 
think  ? " 

"  No,  I  should  think  not,  —  very  likely  not,"  said 
Philip.  "  But  you  may  read  those  stories  without 
knowing  Greek.  I  Ve  got  them  in  English." 

"  Oh,  but  I  don't  like  reading ;  I  'd  sooner  have 
you  tell  them  me.  But  only  the  fighting  ones,  you 
know.  My  sister  Maggie  is  always  wanting  to 
tell  me  stories,  —  but  they  're  stupid  things.  Girls' 
stories  always  are.  Can  you  tell  a  good  many 
fighting  stories  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Philip ;  "  lots  of  them,  besides  the 
Greek  stories.  I  can  tell  you  about  Kichard  Coeur- 
de-Lion  and  Saladin,  and  about  William  Wallace, 
and  Robert  Bruce,  and  James  Douglas,  —  I  know 
no  end." 

"  You  're  older  than  I  am,  are  n't  you  ? "  said 
Tom. 

"  Why,  how  old  are  you  ?    I  'm  fifteen." 

"  I  'm  only  going  in  fourteen,"  said  Tom.  "  But 
I  thrashed  all  the  fellows  at  Jacobs's,  —  that 's 
where  I  was  before  I  came  here.  And  I  beat  'em 
all  at  bandy  and  climbing.  And  I  wish  Mr.  Stel- 
ling would  let  us  go  fishing.  *  /  could  show  you 
how  to  fish.  You  could  fish,  could  n't  you  ?  It 's 
only  standing,  and  sitting  still,  you  know." 

Tom,  in  his  turn,  wished  to  make  the  balance 
dip  in  his  favour.  This  hunchback  must  not  sup- 
pose that  his  acquaintance  with  fighting  stories  put 
him  on  a  par  with  an  actual  fighting  hero,  like  Tom 
Tulliver.  Philip  winced  under  this  allusion  to  his 
unfitness  for  active  sports,  and  he  answered  almost 
peevishly,  — 

"  I  can't  bear  fishing.     I  think  people  look  like 


SCHOOL-TIME.  233 

fools  sitting  watching  a  line  hour  after  hour,  — 
or  else  throwing  and  throwing,  and  catching 
nothing." 

"Ah,  but  you  wouldn't  say  they  looked  like 
fools  when  they  landed  a  big  pike,  I  can  tell  you," 
said  Tom,  who  had  never  caught  anything  that 
was  "  big "  in  his  life,  but  whose  imagination  was 
on  the  stretch  with  indignant  zeal  for  the  honour 
of  sport.  Wakem's  son,  it  was  plain,  had  his  dis- 
agreeable points,  and  must  be  kept  in  due  check. 
Happily  for  the  harmony  of  this  first  interview, 
they  were  now  called  to  dinner,  and  Philip  was 
not  allowed  to  develop  farther  his  unsound  views 
on  the  subject  of  fishing.  But  Tom  said  to  him- 
self that  was  just  what  he  should  have  expected 
from  a  hunchback. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

"  THE   YOUNG  IDEA." 

THE  alternations  of  feeling  in  that  first  dialogue 
between  Tom  and  Philip  continued  to  mark  their 
intercourse  even  after  many  weeks  of  schoolboy 
intimacy.  Tom  never  quite  lost  the  feeling  that 
Philip,  being  the  son  of  a  "  rascal,"  was  his  natu- 
ral enemy,  never  thoroughly  overcame  his  repulsion 
to  Philip's  deformity :  he  was  a  boy  who  adhered 
tenaciously  to  impressions  once  received  ;  as  with 
all  minds  in  which  mere  perception  predominates 
over  thought  and  emotion,  the  external  remained  to 
him  rigidly  what  it  was  in  the  first  instance.  But 
then  it  was  impossible  not  to  like  Philip's  company 
when  he  was  in  a  good  humour ;  he  could  help  one 
so  well  in  one's  Latin  exercises,  which  Tom  regarded 
as  a  kind  of  puzzle  that  could  only  be  found  out 
by  a  lucky  chance ;  and  he  could  tell  such  wonder- 
ful fighting  stories  about  Hal  of  the  Wynd,  for 
example,  and  other  heroes  who  were  especial 
favourites  with  Tom,  because  they  laid  about  them 
with  heavy  strokes.  He  had  small  opinion  of  Sala- 
din,  whose  scimitar  could  cut  a  cushion  in  two  in 
an  instant :  who  wanted  to  cut  cushions  ?  That 
was  a  stupid  story,  and  he  didn't  care  to  hear  it 
again.  But  when  Robert  Bruce,  on  the  black  pony, 
rose  in  his  stirrups,  and,  lifting  his  good  battle-axe, 
cracked  at  once  the  helmet  and  the  skull  of  the  too 
hasty  knight  at  Bannockburn,  then  Tom  felt  all  the 


SCHOOL-TIME.  235 

exaltation  of  sympathy,  and  if  he  had  had  a  cocoa- 
nut  at  hand,  he  would  have  cracked  it  at  once  with 
the  poker.  Philip  in  his  happier  moods  indulged 
Tom  to  the  top  of  his  bent,  heightening  the  crash 
and  bang  and  fury  of  every  fight  with  all  the  artil- 
lery of  epithets  and  similes  at  his  command.  But 
he  was  not  always  in  a  good  humour  or  happy 
mood.  The  slight  spurt  of  peevish  susceptibility 
which  had  escaped  him  in  their  first  interview  was 
a  symptom  of  a  perpetually  recurring  mental  ail- 
ment,—  half  of  it  nervous  irritability,  half  of  it 
the  heart-bitterness  produced  by  the  sense  of  his 
deformity.  In  these  fits  of  susceptibility  every 
glance  seemed  to  him  to  be  charged  either  with 
offensive  pity  or  with  ill-repressed  disgust,  —  at  the 
very  least  it  was  an  indifferent  glance,  and  Philip 
felt  indifference  as  a  child  of  the  south  feels  the 
chill  air  of  a  northern  spring.  Poor  Tom's  blunder- 
ing patronage  when  they  were  out  of  doors  together 
would  sometimes  make  him  turn  upon  the  well- 
meaning  lad  quite  savagely ;  and  his  eyes,  usually 
sad  and  quiet,  would  flash  with  anything  but  play- 
ful lightning.  No  wonder  Tom  retained  his  sus- 
picions of  the  humpback. 

But  Philip's  self-taught  skill  in  drawing  was 
another  link  between  them ;  for  Tom  found,  to  his 
disgust,  that  his  new  drawing-master  gave  him  no 
dogs  and  donkeys  to  draw,  but  brooks  and  rustic 
bridges  and  ruins,  all  with  a  general  softness  of 
black-lead  surface,  indicating  that  nature,  if  any- « 
thing,  was  rather  satiny ;  and  as  Tom's  feeling  for 
the  picturesque  in  landscape  was  at  present  quite 
latent,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Goodrich's  pro- 
ductions seemed  to  him  an  uninteresting  form  of 
art.  Mr.  Tulliver,  having  a  vague  intention  that 


236  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS 

Tom  should  be  put  to  some  business  which  in- 
cluded the  drawing  out  of  plans  and  maps,  had 
complained  to  Mr.  Kiley,  when  he  saw  him  at  Mud- 
port,  that  Tom  seemed  to  be  learning  nothing  of 
that  sort ;  whereupon  that  obliging  adviser  had 
suggested  that  Tom  should  have  drawing-lessons. 
Mr.  Tulliver  must  not  mind  paying  extra  for  draw- 
ing ;  let  Tom  be  made  a  good  draughtsman,  and  he 
would  be  able  to  turn  his  pencil  to  any  purpose. 
So  it  was  ordered  that  Tom  should  have  drawing- 
lessons  ;  and  whom  should  Mr.  Stelling  have  se- 
lected as  a  master  if  not  Mr.  Goodrich,  who  was 
considered  quite  at  the  head  of  his  profession  with- 
in a  circuit  of  twelve  miles  round  King's  Lorton  ? 
By  which  means  Tom  learned  to  make  an  extremely 
fine  point  to  his  pancil,  and  to  represent  landscape 
with  a  "  broad  generality,"  which,  doubtless  from  a 
narrow  tendency  in  his  mind  to  details,  he  thought 
extremely  dull. 

All  this,  you  remember,  happened  in  those  dark 
ages  when  there  were  no  schools  of  design,  —  before 
schoolmasters  were  invariably  men  of  scrupulous 
integrity,  and  before  the  clergy  were  all  men  of 
enlarged  minds  and  varied  culture.  In  those  less 
favoured  days,  it  is  no  fable  that  there  were  other 
clergymen  besides  Mr.  Stelling  who  had  narrow 
intellects  and  large  wants,  and  whose  income,  by  a 
logical  confusion  to  which  Fortune,  being  a  female 
as  well  as  blindfold,  is  peculiarly  liable,  was  pro- 
portioned not  to  their  wants  but  to  their  intellect, 
—  with  which  income  has  clearly  no  inherent  re- 
lation. The  problem  these  gentlemen  had  to  solve 
was  to  readjust  the  proportion  between  their  wants 
and  their  income ;  and  since  wants  are  not  easily 
starved  to  death,  the  simpler  method  appeared  to  be 


SCHOOL-TIME.  237 

—  to  raise  their  income.  There  was  but  one  way 
of  doing  this  ;  any  of  those  low  callings  in  which 
men  are  obliged  to  do  good  work  at  a  low  price 
were  forbidden  to  clergymen  :  was  it  their  fault  if 
their  only  resource  was  to  turn  out  very  poor  work 
at  a  high  price  ?  Besides,  how  should  Mr.  Stelling 
be  expected  to  know  that  education  was  a  delicate 
and  difficult  business,  —  any  more  than  an  animal  en- 
dowed with  a  power  of  boring  a  hole  through  a  rock 
should  be  expected  to  have  wide  views  of  excava- 
tion ?  Mr.  Stelling's  faculties  had  been  early  trained 
to  boring  in  a  straight  line,  and  he  had  no  fac- 
ulty to  spare.  But  among  Tom's  contemporaries, 
whose  fathers  cast  their  sons  on  clerical  instruction 
to  find  them  ignorant  after  many  days,  there  were 
many  far  less  lucky  than  Tom  Tulliver.  Education 
was  almost  entirely  a  matter  of  luck  —  usually  of 
ill  luck  —  in  those  distant  days.  The  state  of 
mind  in  which  you  take  a  billiard-cue  or  a  dice-box 
in  your  hand  is  one  of  soter  certainty  compared 
with  that  of  old-fashioned  fathers,  like  Mr.  Tulliver, 
when  they  selected  a  school  or  a  tutor  for  their 
sons.  Excellent  men,  who  had  been  forced  all  their 
lives  to  spell  on  an  impromptu-phonetic  system, 
and  having  carried  on  a  successful  business  in  spite 
of  this  disadvantage,  had  acquired  money  enough  to 
give  their  sons  a  better  start  in  life  than  they  had 
had  themselves,  must  necessarily  take  their  chance 
as  to  the  conscience  and  the  competence  of  the 
schoolmaster  whose  circular  fell  in  their  way,  and 
appeared  to  promise  so  much  more  than  they  would 
ever  have  thought  of  asking  for,  including  the  re- 
turn of  linen,  fork,  and  spoon.  It  was  happy  for 
them  if  some  ambitious  draper  of  their  acquaintance 
had  not  brought  up  his  son  to  the  Church,  and  if 


238  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

that  young  gentleman,  at  the  age  of  f our-and-twent y, 
had  not  closed  his  college  dissipations  by  an  impru- 
dent marriage :  otherwise,  these  innocent  fathers, 
desirous  of  doing  the  best  for  their  offspring,  could 
only  escape  the  draper's  son  by  happening  to  be  on 
the  foundation  of  a  grammar-school  as  yet  unvisited 
by  commissioners,  where  two  or  three  boys  could 
have,  all  to  themselves,  the  advantages  of  a  large 
and  lofty  building,  together  with  a  head-master, 
toothless,  dim-eyed,  and  deaf,  whose  erudite  indis- 
tinctness and  inattention  were  engrossed  by  them 
at  the  rate  of  three  hundred  pounds  a  head,  —  a 
ripe  scholar,  doubtless,  when  first  appointed ;  but 
all  ripeness  beneath  the  sun  has  a  further  stage  less 
esteemed  in  the  market. 

Tom  Tulliver,  then,  compared  with  many  other 
British  youths  of  his  time  who  have  since  had  to 
scramble  through  life  with  some  fragments  of  more 
or  less  relevant  knowledge,  and  a  great  deal  of 
strictly  relevant  ignorance,  was  not  so  very  unlucky. 
Mr.  Stelling  was  a  broad-chested  healthy  man,  with 
the  bearing  of  a  gentleman,  a  conviction  that  a  grow- 
ing boy  required  a  sufficiency  of  beef,  and  a  certain 
hearty  kindness  in  him  that  made  him  like  to  see 
Tom  looking  well  and  enjoying  his  dinner;  not  a 
man  of  refined  conscience,  or  with  any  deep  sense 
of  the  infinite  issues  belonging  to  every-day  duties  ; 
not  quite  competent  to  his  high  offices  ;  but  incom- 
petent gentlemen  must  live,  and  without  private 
fortune  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  they  could  all  live 
genteelly  if  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  education 
or  government.  Besides,  it  was  the  fault  of  Tom's 
mental  constitution  that  his  faculties  could  not  be 
nourished  on  the  sort  of  knowledge  Mr.  Stelling 
had  to  communicate.  A  boy  born  with  a  deficient 


SCHOOL-TIME.  239 

power  of  apprehending  signs  and  abstractions  must 
suffer  the  penalty  of  his  congenital  deficiency,  just 
as  if  he  had  been  born  with  one  leg  shorter  than 
the  other.  A  method  of  education  sanctioned  by 
the  long  practice  of  our  venerable  ancestors  was  not 
to  give  way  before  the  exceptional  dulness  of  a  boy 
who  was  merely  living  at  the  time  then  present. 
And  Mr.  Stelling  was  convinced  that  a  boy  so  stu- 
pid at  signs  and  abstractions  must  be  stupid  at 
everything  else,  even  if  that  reverend  gentleman 
could  have  taught  him  everything  else.  It  was  the 
practice  of  our  venerable  ancestors  to  apply  that 
ingenious  instrument  the  thumb-screw,  and  to 
tighten  and  tighten  it  in  order  to  elicit  non-existent 
facts ;  they  had  a  fixed  opinion  to  begin  with,  that 
the  facts  were  existent,  and  what  had  they  to  do 
but  to  tighten  the  thumb-screw  ?  In  like  manner, 
Mr.  Stelling  had  a  fixed  opinion  that  all  boys  with 
any  capacity  could  learn  what  it  was  the  only  regu- 
lar thing  to  teach :  if  they  were  slow,  the  thumb- 
screw must  be  tightened,  —  the  exercises  must  be 
insisted  on  with  increased  severity,  and  a  page  of 
Virgil  be  awarded  as  a  penalty  to  encourage  and 
stimulate  a  too  languid  inclination  to  Latin  verse. 

The  thumb-screw  was  a  little  relaxed,  however, 
during  this  second  half-year.  Philip  was  so  advanced 
in  his  studies,  and  so  apt,  that  Mr.  Stelling  could 
obtain  credit  by  his  facility,  which  required  little 
help,  much  more  easily  than  by  the  troublesome 
process  of  overcoming  Tom's  dulness.  Gentlemen 
with  broad  chests  and  ambitious  intentions  do 
sometimes  disappoint  their  friends  by  failing  to 
carry  the  world  before  them.  Perhaps  it  is  that 
high  achievements  demand  some  other  unusual 
qualification  besides  an  unusual  desire  for  high 


240  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

prizes ;  perhaps  it  is  that  these  stalwart  gentlemen 
are  rather  indolent,  their  divince  particulum  aurce 
being  obstructed  from  soaring  by  a  too  hearty  appe- 
tite. Some  reason  or  other  there  was  why  Mr.  Stel- 
ling  deferred  the  execution  of  many  spirited  projects, 
—  why  he  did  not  begin  the  editing  of  his  Greek 
play,  or  any  other  work  of  scholarship,  in  his  leisure 
hours,  but,  after  turning  the  key  of  his  private 
study  with  much  resolution,  sat  down  to  one  of 
Theodore  Hook's  novels.  Tom  was  gradually  al- 
lowed to  shuffle  through  his  lessons  with  less  rigour, 
and,  having  Philip  to  help  him,  he  was  able  to  make 
some  show  of  having  applied  his  mind  in  a  confused 
and  blundering  way,  without  being  cross-examined 
into  a  betrayal  that  his  mind  had  been  entirely 
neutral  in  the  matter.  He  thought  school  much 
more  bearable  under  this  modification  of  circum- 
stances ;  and  he  went  on  contentedly  enough,  pick- 
ing up  a  promiscuous  education  chiefly  from  things 
that  were  not  intended  as  education  at  all.  What 
was  understood  to  be  his  education  was  simply  the 
practice  of  reading,  writing,  and  spelling,  carried  on 
by  an  elaborate  appliance  of  unintelligible  ideas, 
and  by  much  failure  in  the  effort  to  learn  by  rote. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  a  visible  improvement  in 
Tom  under  this  training ;  perhaps  because  he  was 
not  a  boy  in  the  abstract,  existing  solely  to  illus- 
trate the  evils  of  a  mistaken  education,  but  a  boy 
made  of  flesh  and  blood,  with  dispositions  not  en- 
tirely at  the  mercy  of  circumstances. 

There  was  a  great  improvement  in  his  bearing, 
for  example ;  and  some  credit  on'  this  score  was  due 
to  Mr.  Poulter,  the  village  schoolmaster,  who,  being 
an  old  Peninsular  soldier,  was  employed  to  drill 
Tom,  —  a  source  of  high  mutual  pleasure.  Mr. 


SCHOOL-TIME.  241 

Poulter,  who  was  understood  by  the  company  at 
the  Black  Swan  to  have  once  struck  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  the  French,  was  no  longer  personally 
formidable.  He  had  rather  a  shrunken  appearance, 
and  was  tremulous  in  the  mornings,  not  from  age, 
but  from  the  extreme  perversity  of  the  King's  Lor- 
ton  boys,  which  nothing  but  gin  could  enable  him  to 
sustain  with  any  firmness.  Still,  he  carried  himself 
with  martial  erectness,  had  his  clothes  scrupulously 
brushed,  and  his  trousers  tightly  strapped ;  and  on 
the  Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons,  when  he 
came  to  Tom,  he  was  always  inspired  with  gin  and  old 
memories,  which  gave  him  an  exceptionally  spirited 
air,  as  of  a  superannuated  charger  who  hears  the 
drum.  The  drilling-lessons  were  always  protracted 
by  episodes  of  warlike  narrative,  much  more  interest- 
ing to  Tom  than  Philip's  stories  out  of  the  Iliad ; 
for  there  were  no  cannon  in  the  Iliad,  and,  besides, 
Tom  had  felt  some  disgust  on  learning  that  Hector 
and  Achilles  might  possibly  never  have  existed. 
But  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  really  alive,  and 
Bony  had  not  been  long  dead,  —  therefore  Mr. 
Poulter's  reminiscences  of  the  Peninsular  War  were 
removed  from  all  suspicion  of  being  mythical.  Mr. 
Poulter,  it  appeared,  had  been  a  conspicuous  figure 
at  Talavera,  and  had  contributed  not  a  little  to  the 
peculiar  terror  with  which  his  regiment  of  infantry 
was  regarded  by  the  enemy.  On  afternoons,  when 
his  memory  was  more  stimulated  than  usual,  he  re- 
membered that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  had  (in 
strict  privacy,  lest  jealousies  should  be  awakened) 
expressed  his  esteem  for  that  fine  fellow  Poulter. 
The  very  surgeon  who  attended  him  in  the  hospital 
after  he  had  received  his  gunshot-wound  had  been 
profoundly  impressed  with  the  superiority  of  Mr. 

voi-  i. — 16 


242  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Poulter's  flesh  ;  no  other  flesh  would  have  healed  in 
anything  like  the  same  time.  On  less  personal 
matters  connected  with  the  important  warfare  in 
which  he  had  been  engaged,  Mr.  Poulter  was  more 
reticent,  only  taking  care  not  to  give  the  weight  of 
his  authority  to  any  loose  notions  concerning  mili- 
tary history.  Any  one  who  pretended  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  what  occurred  at  the  siege  of  Badajos  was 
especially  an  object  of  silent  pity  to  Mr.  Poulter; 
he  wished  that  prating  person  had  been  run  down 
and  had  the  breath  trampled  out  of  him  at  the  first 
go-off,  as  he  himself  had,  —  he  might  talk  about  the 
siege  of  Badajos  then !  Tom  did  not  escape  irritat- 
ing his  drilling-master  occasionally,  by  his  curiosity 
concerning  other  military  matters  than  Mr.  Poulter's 
personal  experience. 

"  And  General  Wolfe,  Mr.  Poulter  ?  was  n't  he  a 
wonderful  fighter  ? "  said  Tom,  who  held  the  notion 
that  all  the  martial  heroes  commemorated  on  the  pub- 
lic-house signs  were  engaged  in  the  war  with  Bony. 

"Not  at  all!"  said  Mr.  Poulter,  contemptuously. 
"  Nothing  o'  the  sort !  .  .  .  Heads  up ! "  he  added, 
in  a  tone  of  stern  command,  which  delighted  Tom, 
and  made  him  feel  as  if  he  were  a  regiment  in  his 
own  person. 

"No,  no!"  Mr.  Poulter  would  continue,  on  com- 
ing to  a  pause  in  his  discipline.  "  They  'd  better 
not  talk  to  me  about  General  Wolfe.  He  did  noth- 
ing but  die  of  his  wound ;  that 's  a  poor  haction,  I 
consider.  Any  other  man  'ud  have  died  o'  the 
wounds  I  Ve  had.  .  .  .  One  of  my  sword-cuts  'ud  ha' 
killed  a  fellow  like  General  Wolfe." 

"  Mr.  Poulter,"  Tom  would  say,  at  any  allusion 
to  the  sword,  "  I  wish  you  'd  bring  your  sword  and 
do  the  sword-exercise  1 " 


SCHOOL-TIME.  243 

For  a  long  while  Mr.  Poulter  only  shook  his  head 
in  a  significant  manner  at  this  request,  and  smiled 
patronizingly,  as  Jupiter  may  have  done  when 
Semele  urged  her  too  ambitious  request.  But  one 
afternoon,  when  a  sudden  shower  of  heavy  rain  had 
detained  Mr.  Poulter  twenty  minutes  longer  than 
usual  at  the  Black  Swan,  the  sword  was  brought,  — 
just  for  Tom  to  look  at. 

"  And  this  is  the  real  sword  you  fought  with  in 
all  the  battles,  Mr.  Poulter  ? "  said  Tom,  handling 
the  hilt.  "  Has  it  ever  cut  a  Frenchman's  head 
off?" 

"  Head  off  ?  Ah  !  and  would,  if  he  'd  had  three 
heads." 

"  But  you  had  a  gun  and  bayonet  besides  ? " 
said  Tom.  "/  should  like  the  gun  and  bayonet 
best,  because  you  could  shoot  'em  first  and  spear 
'em  after.  Bang !  Ps-s-s-s  !  "  Tom  gave  the  req- 
uisite pantomime  to  indicate  the  double  enjoy- 
ment of  pulling  the  trigger  and  thrusting  the 
spear. 

"  Ah,  but  the  sword 's  the  thing  when  you  come 
to  close  fighting,"  said  Mr.  Poulter,  involuntarily 
falling  in  with  Tom's  enthusiasm,  and  drawing  the 
sword  so  suddenly  that  Tom  leaped  back  with 
much  agility. 

"  Oh,  but,  Mr.  Poulter,  if  you  're  going  to  do  the 
exercise,"  said  Tom,  a  little  conscious  that  he  had 
not  stood  his  ground  as  became  an  Englishman, 
"  let  me  go  and  call  Philip.  He  '11  like  to  see  you, 
you  know." 

"  What !  the  humpbacked  lad  ?  "  said  Mr.  Poulter, 
contemptuously.  "What's  the  use  of  his  looking 
on?" 

"  Oh,  but  he  knows  a  great  deal  about  fighting," 


244  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

said  Tom,  "  and  how  they  used  to  fight  with  bows 
and  arrows  and  battle-axes." 

"  Let  him  come,  then.  I  '11  show  him  something 
different  from  his  bows  and  arrows,"  said  Mr.  Poul- 
ter,  coughing,  and  drawing  himself  up,  while  he 
gave  a  little  preliminary  play  to  his  wrist. 

Tom  ran  in  to  Philip,  who  was  enjoying  his  after- 
noon's holiday  at  the  piano,  in  the  drawing-room, 
picking  out  tunes  for  himself  and  singing  them. 
He  was  supremely  happy,  perched  like  an  amor- 
phous bundle  on  the  high  stool,  with  his  head  thrown 
back,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  opposite  cornice,  and  his 
lips  wide  open,  sending  forth  with  all  his  might 
impromptu  syllables  to  a  tune  of  Arne's,  which  had 
hit  his  fancy. 

"  Come,  Philip,"  said  Tom,  bursting  in ;  "  don't 
stay  roaring  '  la  la '  there,  —  come  and  see  old  Poul- 
ter  do  his  sword-exercise  in  the  carriage-house  ! " 

The  jar  of  this  interruption  —  the  discord  of 
Tom's  tones  coming  across  the  notes  to  which 
Philip  was  vibrating  in  soul  and  body  —  would  have 
been  enough  to  unhinge  his  temper,  even  if  there 
had  been  no  question  of  Poulter  the  drilling- 
master;  and  Tom,  in  the  hurry  of  seizing  some- 
thing to  say  to  prevent  Mr.  Poulter  from  thinking 
he  was  afraid  of  the  sword  when  he  sprang  away 
from  it,  had  alighted  on  this  proposition  to  fetch 
Philip,  —  though  he  knew  well  enough  that  Philip 
hated  to  hear  him  mention  his  drilling-lessons. 
Tom  would  never  have  done  so  inconsiderate  a  thing 
except  under  the  severe  stress  of  his  personal  pride. 

Philip  shuddered  visibly  as  he  paused  from  his 
music.  Then,  turning  red,  he  said,  with  violent 
passion,  — 

"  Get  away,  you  lumbering  idiot !  —  Don't  come 


SCHOOL-TIME.  245 

bellowing  at  me,  —  you  're  not  fit  to  speak  to  any- 
thing but  a  cart-horse  ! " 

It  was  not  the  first  time  Philip  had  been  made 
angry  by  him,  but  Tom  had  never  before  been 
assailed  with  verbal  missiles  that  he  understood  so 
well. 

"  I  'm  fit  to  speak  to  something  better  than  you, 
you  poor-spirited  imp!"  said  Tom,  lighting  up  im- 
mediately at  Philip 's  fire.  "  You  know  I  won't  hit 
you,  because  you  're  no  better  than  a  girl.  But  I  'm 
an  honest  man's  son,  and  your  father 's  a  rogue,  — 
everybody  says  so  ! " 

Tom  flung  out  of  the  room,  and  slammed  the 
door  after  him,  made  strangely  heedless  by  his 
anger;  for  to  slam  doors  within  the  hearing  of 
Mrs.  Stelling,  who  was  probably  not  far  off,  was 
an  offence  only  to  be  wiped  out  by  twenty  lines  of 
Virgil.  In  fact,  that  lady  did  presently  descend 
from  her  room,  in  double  wonder  at  the  noise  and 
the  subsequent  cessation  of  Philip's  music.  She 
found  him  sitting  in  a  heap  on  the  hassock,  and 
crying  bitterly. 

"  What 's  the  matter,  Wakem  ?  What  was  that 
noise  about  ?  Who  slammed  the  door  ? " 

Philip  looked  up,  and  hastily  dried  his  eyes. 
"  It  was  Tulliver  who  came  in  ...  to  ask  me  to 
go  out  with  him." 

"  And  what  are  you  in  trouble  about  ? "  said  Mrs. 
Stelling. 

Philip  was  not  her  favourite  of  the  two  pupils ; 
he  was  less  obliging  than  Tom,  who  was  made  use- 
ful in  many  ways.  Still  his  father  paid  more  than 
Mr.  Tulliver  did,  and  she  meant  him  to  feel  that 
she  behaved  exceedingly  well  to  him.  Philip,  how- 
ever, met  her  advances  towards  a  good  understanding 


246  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

very  much  as  a  caressed  mollusk  meets  an  invita- 
tion to  show  himself  out  of  his  shell.  Mrs.  Stel- 
ling  was  not  a  loving,  tender-hearted  woman :  she 
was  a  woman  whose  skirt  sat  well,  who  adjusted 
her  waist  and  patted  her  curls  with  a  preoccupied 
air  when  she  inquired  after  your  welfare.  These 
things,  doubtless,  represent  a  great  social  power, 
but  it  is  not  the  power  of  love,  —  and  no  other 
power  could  win  Philip  from  his  personal  reserve. 

He  said,  in  answer  to  her  question,  "  My  tooth- 
ache came  on  and  made  me  hysterical  again." 

This  had  been  the  fact  once,  and  Philip  was  glad 
of  the  recollection,  —  it  was  like  an  inspiration  to 
enable  him  to  excuse  his  crying.  He  had  to  accept 
eau-de-Cologne,  and  to  refuse  creosote  in  conse- 
quence; but  that  was  easy. 

Meanwhile  Tom,  who  had  for  the  first  time  sent 
a  poisoned  arrow  into  Philip's  heart,  had  returned 
to  the  carriage-house,  where  he  found  Mr.  Poulter, 
with  a  fixed  and  earnest  eye,  wasting  the  perfec- 
tions of  his  sword-exercise  on  probably  observant 
but  inappreciative  rats.  But  Mr.  Poulter  was  a 
host  in  himself;  that  is  to  say,  he  admired  him- 
self more  than  a  whole  army  of  spectators  could 
have  admired  him.  He  took  no  notice  of  Tom's 
return,  being  too  entirely  absorbed  in  the  cut  and 
thrust,  —  the  solemn  one,  two,  three,  four ;  and 
Tom,  not  without  a  slight  feeling  of  alarm  at  Mr. 
Poulter's  fixed  eye  and  hungry-looking  sword,  which 
seemed  impatient  for  something  else  to  cut  besides 
the  air,  admired  the  performance  from  as  great  a 
distance  as  possible.  It  was  not  until  Mr.  Poulter 
paused  and  wiped  the  perspiration  from  his  fore- 
head, that  Tom  felt  the  full  charm  of  the  sword- 
exercise,  and  wished  it  to  be  repeated. 


SCHOOL-TIME.  247 

"Mr.  Poulter,"  said  Tom,  when  the  sword  was 
being  finally  sheathed,  "  I  wish  you  'd  lend  me 
your  sword  a  little  while  to  keep." 

"  No,  no,  young  gentleman,"  said  Mr.  Poulter, 
shaking  his  head  decidedly ;  "  you  might  do  your- 
self some  mischief  with  it." 

"No,  I'm  sure  I  wouldn't  —  I'm  sure  I'd  take 
care  and  not  hurt  myself,  I  should  n't  take  it  out 
of  the  sheath  much,  but  I  could  ground  arms  with 
it,  and  all  that." 

"  No,  no,  it  won't  do,  I  tell  you ;  it  won't  do," 
said  Mr.  Poulter,  preparing  to  depart.  "  What  'ud 
Mr.  Stelling  say  to  me  ?  " 

"Oh,  I  say,  do,  Mr.  Poulter !  I  'd  give  you  my 
five-shilling  piece  if  you  'd  let  me  keep  the  sword  a 
week.  Look  here  ! "  said  Tom,  reaching  out  the 
attractively  large  round  of  silver.  The  young  dog 
calculated  the  effect  as  well  as  if  he  had  been  a 
philosopher. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Poulter,  with  still  deeper 
gravity,  "you  must  keep  it  out  of  sight,  you 
know." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  '11  keep  it  under  the  bed,"  said  Tom, 
eagerly,  "  or  else  at  the  bottom  of  my  large  box." 

"  And  let  me  see,  now,  whether  you  can  draw  it 
out  of  the  sheath  without  hurting  yourself." 

That  process  having  been  gone  through  more  than 
once,  Mr.  Poulter  felt  that  he  had  acted  with  scru- 
pulous conscientiousness,  and  said,  "  Well  now, 
Master  Tulliver,  if  I  take  the  crown-piece,  it  is  to 
make  sure  as  you  '11  do  no  mischief  with  the  sword." 

"  Oh  no,  indeed,  Mr.  Poulter,"  said  Tom,  de- 
lightedly handing  him  the  crown-piece,  and  grasp- 
ing the  sword,  which,  he  thought,  might  have  been 
lighter  with  advantage. 


248  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  But  if  Mr.  Stelling  catches  you  carrying  it  in  ? " 
said  Mr.  Poulter,  pocketing  the  crown-piece  provi- 
sionally while  he  raised  this  new  doubt. 

"  Oh,  he  always  keeps  in  his  upstairs  study  on 
Saturday  afternoons,"  said  Tom,  who  disliked  any- 
thing sneaking,  but  was  not  disinclined  to  a  little 
stratagem  in  a  worthy  cause.  So  he  carried  off  the 
sword  in  triumph,  mixed  with  dread,  —  dread  that 
he  might  encounter  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Stelling,  —  to  his 
bedroom,  where,  after  some  consideration,  he  hid  it 
in  the  closet  behind  some  hanging  clothes.  That 
night  he  fell  asleep  in  the  thought  that  he  would 
astonish  Maggie  with  it  when  she  came,  —  tie  it 
round  his  waist  with  his  red  comforter,  and  make 
her  believe  that  the  sword  was  his  own,  and  that 
he  was  going  to  be  a  soldier.  There  was  nobody 
but  Maggie  who  would  be  silly  enough  to  believe 
him,  or  whom  he  dared  allow  to  know  that  he  had  a 
sword ;  and  Maggie  was  really  coming  next  week  to 
see  Tom,  before  she  went  to  a  boarding-school  with 
Lucy. 

If  you  think  a  lad  of  thirteen  would  not  have 
been  so  childish,  you  must  be  an  exceptionally 
wise  man,  who,  although  you  are  devoted  to  a  civil 
calling,  requiring  you  to  look  bland  rather  than 
formidable,  yet  never,  since  you  had  a  beard 
threw  yourself  into  a  martial  attitude,  and  frowned 
before  the  looking-glass.  It  is  doubtful  whether  our 
soldiers  would  be  maintained  if  there  were  not  pa- 
cific people  at  home  who  like  to  fancy  themselves 
soldiers.  War,  like  other  dramatic  spectacles, 
might  possibly  cease  for  want  of  a  "public." 


CHAPTEE  V. 

MAGGIE'S  SECOND  VISIT. 

THIS  last  breach  between  the  two  lads  was  not 
readily  mended,  and  for  some  time  they  spoke  to 
each  other  no  more  than  was  necessary.  Their 
natural  antipathy  of  temperament  made  resentment 
an  easy  passage  to  hatred,  and  in  Philip  the  transi- 
tion seemed  to  have  begun  :  there  was  no  malignity 
in  his  disposition,  but  there  was  a  susceptibility  that 
made  him  peculiarly  liable  to  a  strong  sense  of  re- 
pulsion. The  ox  —  we  may  venture  to  assert  it  on  the 
authority  of  a  great  classic  —  is  not  given  to  use  his 
teeth  as  an  instrument  of  attack  ;  and  Tom  was  an 
excellent  bovine  lad,  who  ran  at  questionable  objects 
in  a  truly  ingenious  bovine  manner;  but  he  had 
blundered  on  Philip's  tenderest  point,  and  had  caused 
him  as  much  acute  pain  as  if  he  had  studied  the 
means  with  the  nicest  precision  and  the  most  en- 
venomed spite.  Torn  saw  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  make  up  this  quarrel  as  they  had  done  many 
others,  by  behaving  as  if  nothing  had  happened ;  for 
though  he  had  never  before  said  to  Philip  that  his 
father  was  a  rogue,  this  idea  had  so  habitually  made 
part  of  his  feeling  as  to  the  lelation  between  him- 
self and  his  dubious  schoolfellow,  whom  he  could 
neither  like  nor  dislike,  that  the  mere  utterance  did 
not  make  such  an  epoch  to  him  as  it  did  to  Philip. 
And  he  had  a  right  to  say  so  when  Philip  hectored 
over  him,  and  called  him  names.  But  perceiving 


2so  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

that  his  first  advances  towards  amity  were  not  met, 
he  relapsed  into  his  least  favourable  disposition 
towards  Philip,  and  resolved  never  to  appeal  to  him 
either  about  drawing  or  exercises  again.  They  were 
only  so  far  civil  to  each  other  as  was  necessary  to 
prevent  their  state  of  feud  from  being  observed  by 
Mr.  Stelling,  who  would  have  "  put  down  "  such 
nonsense  with  great  vigour. 

When  Maggie  came,  however,  she  could  not  help 
looking  with  growing  interest  at  the  new  school- 
fellow, although  he  was  the  son  of  that  wicked 
Lawyer  Wakem,  who  made  her  father  so  angry.  She 
had  arrived  in  the  middle  of  school-hours,  and  had 
sat  by  while  Philip  went  through  his  lessons  with 
Mr.  Stelling.  Tom,  some  weeks  ago,  had  sent  her 
word  that  Philip  knew  no  end  of  stories,  —  not 
stupid  stories  like  hers ;  and  she  was  convinced  now 
from  her  own  observation  that  he  must  be  very 
clever :  she  hoped  he  would  think  her  rather  clever 
too,  when  she  came  to  talk  to  him.  Maggie,  more- 
over, had  rather  a  tenderness  for  deformed  things ; 
she  preferred  the  wry-necked  lambs,  because  it 
seemed  to  her  that  the  lambs  which  were  quite  strong 
and  well  made  would  n't  mind  so  much  about  being 
petted ;  and  she  was  especially  fond  of  petting 
objects  that  would  think  it  very  delightful  to  be 
petted  by  her.  She  loved  Tom  very  dearly,  but  she 
often  wished  that  he  cared  more  about  her  loving 
him. 

"  I  think  Philip  Wakem  seems  a  nice  boy,  Tom," 
she  said,  when  they  went  out  of  the  study  together 
into  the  garden,  to  pass  the  interval  before  dinner. 
"  He  could  n't  choose  his  father,  you  know  ;  and  I  've 
read  of  very  bad  men  who  had  good  sons,  as  well 
as  good  parents  who  had  bad  children.  And  if 


SCHOOL-TIME.  251 

Philip  is  good,  I  think  we  ought  to  be  the  more 
sorry  for  him  because  his  father  is  not  a  good  man. 
You  like  him,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  's  a  queer  fellow,"  said  Tom,  curtly,  "  and 
he  's  as  sulky  as  can  be  with  me,  because  I  told  him 
his  father  was  a  rogue.  And  I  'd  a  right  to  tell  him 
so,  for  it  was  true  —  and  he  began  it,  with  calling 
me  names.  But  you  stop  here  by  yourself  a  bit, 
Magsie,  will  you  ?  I  've  got  something  I  want  to 
do  upstairs." 

"  Can't  I  go  too  ? "  said  Maggie,  who,  in  this  first 
day  of  meeting  again,  loved  Tom's  shadow. 

"  No,  it 's  something  I  '11  tell  you  about  by  and 
by,  not  yet,"  said  Tom,  skipping  away. 

In  the  afternoon  the  boys  were  at  their  books  in 
the  study,  preparing  the  morrow's  lessons,  that  they 
might  have  a  holiday  in  the  evening  in  honour  of 
Maggie's  arrival.  Tom  was  hanging  over  his  Latin 
Grammar,  moving  his  lips  inaudibly  like  a  strict  but 
impatient  Catholic  repeating  his  tale  of  paternosters  ; 
and  Philip,  at  the  ether  end  of  the  room,  was  busy 
with  two  volumes,  with  a  look  of  contented  diligence 
that  excited  Maggie's  curiosity :  he  did  not  look  at 
all  as  if  he  were  learning  a  lesson.  She  sat  on  a 
low  stool  at  nearly  a  right  angle  with  the  two  boys, 
watching  first  one  and  then  the  other ;  and  Philip, 
looking  off  his  book  once  towards  the  fireplace,  caught 
the  pair  of  questioning  dark  eyes  fixed  upon  him. 
He  thought  this  sister  of  Tulliver's  seemed  a  nice 
little  thing,  quite  unlike  her  brother ;  he  wished  he 
had  a  little  sister.  What  was  it,  he  wondered,  that 
made  Maggie's  dark  eyes  remind  him  of  the  stories 
about  princesses  being  turned  into  animals  ?  .  .  .  I 
think  it  was  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  unsatisfied 
intelligence,  and  unsatisfied,  beseeching  affection. 


252  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"I  say,  Magsie,"  said  Tom  at  last,  shutting  his 
books  and  putting  them  away  with  the  energy  and 
decision  of  a  perfect  master  in  the  art  of  leaving  off, 
"  I  've  done  my  lessons  now.  Come  upstairs  with 
me." 

"  What  is  it  ? "  said  Maggie,  when  they  were  out- 
side the  door,  a  slight  suspicion  crossing  her  mind 
as  she  remembered  Tom's  preliminary  visit  upstairs. 
"  It  is  n't  a  trick  you  're  going  to  play  me,  now  ? " 

"  No,  no,  Maggie,"  said  Tom,  in  his  most  coaxing 
tone  ;  "  it 's  something  you  '11  like  ever  so." 

He  put  his  arm  round  her  neck,  and  she  put  hers 
round  his  waist,  and,  twined  together  in  this  way, 
they  went  upstairs. 

"  I  say,  Magsie,  you  must  not  tell  anybody,  you 
know,"  said  Tom,  "  else  I  shall  get  fifty  lines." 

"  Is  it  alive  ? "  said  Maggie,  whose  imagination 
had  settled  for  the  moment  on  the  idea  that  Tom 
kept  a  ferret  clandestinely. 

"  Oh,  I  sha'n't  tell  you,"  said  he.  "  Now  you  go 
into  that  corner  and  hide  your  face,  while  I  reach  it 
out,"  he  added,  as  he  locked  the  bedroom  door  be- 
hind them.  "  I  '11  tell  you  when  to  turn  round. 
You  mustn't  squeal  out,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  but  if  you  frighten  me,  I  shall,"  said  Maggie, 
beginning  to  look  rather  serious. 

"  You  won't  be  frightened,  you  silly  thing,"  said 
Tom.  "  Go  and  hide  your  face,  and  mind  you  don't 
peep." 

"  Of  course  I  sha'n't  peep,"  said  Maggie,  disdain- 
fully ;  and  she  buried  her  face  in  the  pillow  like  a 
person  of  strict  honour. 

But  Torn  looked  round  warily  as  he  walked  to 
the  closet ;  then  he  stepped  into  the  narrow  space, 
and  almost  closed  the  door.  Maggie  kept  her  face 


SCHOOL-TIME.  253 

buried  without  the  aid  of  principle,  for  in  that  dream- 
suggestive  attitude  she  had  soon  forgotten  where 
she  was,  and  her  thoughts  were  busy  with  the  poor 
deformed  boy,  who  was  so  clever,  when  Tom  called 
out,  "  Now  then,  Magsie  !  " 

Nothing  but  long  meditation  and  preconcerted 
arrangement  of  effects  could  have  enabled  Tom  to 
present  so  striking  a  figure  as  he  did  to  Maggie  when 
she  looked  up.  Dissatisfied  with  the  pacific  aspect 
of  a  face  which  had  no  more  than  the  faintest  hint 
of  flaxen  eyebrow,  together  with  a  pair  of  amiable 
blue-gray  eyes  and  round  pink  cheeks  that  refused 
to  look  formidable,  let  him  frown  as  he  would 
before  the  looking-glass,  —  (Philip  had  once  told 
him  of  a  man  who  had  a  horse-shoe  frown,  and  Tom 
had  tried  with  all  his  frowning-might  to  make  a 
horse-shoe  on  his  forehead),  —  he  had  had  recourse 
to  that  unfailing  source  of  the  terrible,  burnt  cork, 
and  had  made  himself  a  pair  of  black  eyebrows  that 
met  in  a  satisfactory  manner  over  his  nose,  and  were 
matched  by  a  less  carefully  adjusted  blackness  about 
the  chin.  He  had  wound  a  red  handkerchief  round 
his  cloth  cap  to  give  it  the  air  of  a  turban,  and  his 
red  comforter  across  his  breast  as  a  scarf,  —  an 
amount  of  red  which,  with  the  tremendous  frown  on 
his  brow,  and  the  decision  with  which  he  grasped 
the  sword,  as  he  held  it  with  its  point  resting  on  the 
ground,  would  suffice  to  convey  an  approximative 
idea  of  his  fierce  and  bloodthirsty  disposition. 

Maggie  looked  bewildered  for  a  moment,  and  Tom 
enjoyed  that  moment  keenly ;  but  in  the  next  she 
laughed,  clapped  her  hands  together,  and  said,  "  Oh, 
Tom,  you  Ve  made  yourself  like  Bluebeard  at  the 
show." 

It  was  clear  she  had  not  been  struck  with  the 


254  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

presence  of  the  sword,  —  it  was  not  unsheathed. 
Her  frivolous  mind  required  a  more  direct  appeal  to 
its  sense  of  the  terrible,  and  Tom  prepared  for  his 
master-stroke.  Frowning  with  a  double  amount  of 
intention,  if  not  of  corrugation,  he  (carefully)  drew 
the  sword  from  its  sheath,  and  pointed  it  at  Maggie. 

"  Oh,  Tom,  please  don't,"  exclaimed  Maggie,  in  a 
tone  of  suppressed  dread,  shrinking  away  from  him 
into  the  opposite  corner.  "  I  shall  scream  —  I  'm 
sure  I  shall !  Oh,  don't !  I  wish  I  'd  never  come 
upstairs  ! " 

The  corners  of  Tom's  mouth  showed  an  inclina- 
tion to  a  smile  of  complacency  that  was  immediately 
checked  as  inconsistent  with  the  severity  of  a  great 
warrior.  Slowly  he  let  down  the  scabbard  on  the 
floor,  lest  it  should  make  too  much  noise,  and  then 
said  sternly,  — 

"  I  'm  the  Duke  of  Wellington  !  March  !  "  stamp- 
ing forward  with  the  right  leg  a  little  bent,  and  the 
sword  still  pointing  towards  Maggie,  who,  trembling 
and  with  tear-filled  eyes,  got  upon  the  bed,  as  the 
only  means  of  widening  the  space  between  them. 

Tom,  happy  in  this  spectator  of  his  military  per- 
formances, even  though  the  spectator  was  only 
Maggie,  proceeded,  with  the  utmost  exertion  of  his 
force,  to  such  an  exhibition  of  the  cut  and  thrust 
as  would  necessarily  be  expected  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington. 

"  Tom,  I  will  not  bear  it,  —  I  will  scream,"  said 
Maggie,  at  the  first  movement  of  the  sword.  "  You  '11 
hurt  yourself  ;  you'll  cut  your  head  off !  " 

"  One  —  two,"  said  Tom,  resolutely,  though  at 
"two"  his  wrist  trembled  a  little.  "Three"  came 
more  slowly,  and  with  it  the  sword  swung  down- 
wards, and  Maggie  gave  a  loud  shriek.  The  sword 


Tom  frightening  Maggie. 

Original  Etching  by  C.  O.  Murray. 


SCHOOL-TIME.  255 

had  fallen  with  its  edge  on  Tom's  foot,  and  in  a 
moment  after  he  had  fallen  too.  Maggie  leaped 
from  the  bed,  still  shrieking,  and  immediately  there 
was  a  rush  of  footsteps  towards  the  room.  Mr. 
Stelling,  from  his  upstairs  study,  was  the  first  to 
enter.  He  found  both  the  children  on  the  floor. 
Tom  had  fainted,  and  Maggie  was  shaking  him  by 
the  collar  of  his  jacket,  screaming,  with  wild  eyes. 
She  thought  he  was  dead,  poor  child  !  and  yet  she 
shook  him,  as  if  that  would  bring  him  back  to  life. 
In  another  minute  she  was  sobbing  with  joy  be- 
cause Tom  had  opened  his  eyes :  she  could  n't  sor- 
row yet  that  he  had  hurt  his  foot,  —  it  seemed  as  if 
all  happiness  lay  in  his  being  alive. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

A    LOVE     SCENE. 

POOR  Tom  bore  his  severe  pain  heroically,  and  was 
resolute  in  not  "  telling  "  of  Mr.  Poulter  more  than 
was  unavoidable :  the  five-shilling  piece  remained 
a  secret  even  to  Maggie.  But  there  was  a  terrible 
dread  weighing  on  his  mind,  —  so  terrible  that  he 
dared  not  even  ask  the  question  which  might  bring 
the  fatal  "  yes,"  —  he  dared  not  ask  the  surgeon  or 
Mr.  Stelling,  "  Shall  I  be  lame,  sir  ? "  He  mastered 
himself  so  as  not  to  cry  out  at  the  pain ;  but  when 
his  foot  had  been  dressed,  and  he  was  left  alone 
with  Maggie  seated  by  his  bedside,  the  children 
sobbed  together  with  their  heads  laid  on  the  same 
pillow.  Tom  was  thinking  of  himself  walking 
about  on  crutches,  like  the  wheelwright's  son  ;  and 
Maggie,  who  did  not  guess  what  was  in  his  mind, 
sobbed  for  company.  It  had  not  occurred  to  the 
surgeon  or  to  Mr.  Stelling  to  anticipate  this  dread 
in  Tom's  mind,  and  to  reassure  him  by  hopeful 
words.  But  Philip  watched  the  surgeon  out  of  the 
house,  and  waylaid  Mr.  Stelling  to  ask  the  very 
question  that  Tom  had  not  dared  to  ask  for 
himself. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  —  but  does  Mr.  Askern 
say  Tulliver  will  be  lame  ?  " 

"  Oh  no,  oh  no,"  said  Mr.  Stelling,  "  not  perma- 
nently, only  for  a  little  while." 

"  Did  he  tell  Tulliver  so,  sir,  do  you  think  ? " 

"  No  ;  nothing  was  said  to  him  on  the  subject." 


SCHOOL-TIME.  257 

"  Then  may  I  go  and  tell  him,  sir  ? " 

"  Yes,  to  be  sure :  now  you  mention  it,  I  dare 
say  he  may  be  troubling  about  that.  Go  to  his 
bedroom,  but  be  very  quiet  at  present." 

It  had  been  Philip's  first  thought  when  he  heard 
of  the  accident,  —  "  Will  Tulliver  be  lame  ?  It  will 
be  very  hard  for  him  if  he  is ; "  and  Tom's  hitherto 
unforgiven  offences  were  washed  out  by  that  pity. 
Philip  felt  that  they  were  no  longer  in  a  state  of 
repulsion,  but  were  being  drawn  into  a  common 
current  of  suffering  and  sad  privation.  His  imagi- 
nation did  not  dwell  on  the  outward  calamity  and 
its  future  effect  on  Tom's  life,  but  it  made  vividly 
present  to  him  the  probable  state  of  Tom's  feeling. 
Philip  had  only  lived  fourteen  years,  but  those  years 
had,  most  of  them,  been  steeped  in  the  sense  of  a 
lot  irremediably  hard. 

"  Mr.  Askern  says  you  '11  soon  be  all  right  again, 
Tulliver,  did  you  know  ? "  he  said,  rather  timidly,  as 
he  stepped  gently  up  to  Tom's  bed.  "  I  've  just  been 
to  ask  Mr.  Stelling,  and  he  says  you  '11  walk  as  well 
as  ever  again  by  and  by." 

Tom  looked  up  with  that  momentary  stopping  of 
the  breath  which  comes  with  a  sudden  joy ;  then 
he  gave  a  long  sigh,  and  turned  his  blue-gray  eyes 
straight  on  Philip's  face,  as  he  had  not  done  for  a 
fortnight  or  more.  As  for  Maggie,  this  intimation 
of  a  possibility  she  had  not  thought  of  before,  af- 
fected her  as  a  new  trouble ;  the  bare  idea  of  Tom's 
being  always  lame  overpowered  the  assurance  that 
such  a  misfortune  was  not  likely  to  befall  him,  and 
she  clung  to  him  and  cried  afresh. 

"  Don't  be  a  little  silly,  Magsie,"  said  Tom,  ten- 
derly, feeling  very  brave  now.  "  I  shall  soon  get 
well." 

VOL.  I. —  17 


253  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Good-by,  Tulliver,"  said  Philip,  putting  out  his 
small,  delicate  hand,  which  Tom  clasped  immediately 
with  his  more  substantial  fingers. 

"  I  say,"  said  Tom,  "  ask  Mr.  Stelling  to  let  you 
come  and  sit  with  me  sometimes,  till  I  get  up  again, 
Wakem,  —  and  tell  me  about  Eobert  Bruce,  you 
know." 

After  that,  Philip  spent  all  his  time  out  of  school- 
hours  with  Tom  and  Maggie.  Tom  liked  to  hear 
fighting  stories  as  much  as  ever,  but  he  insisted 
strongly  on  the  fact  that  those  great  fighters,  who 
did  so  many  wonderful  things  and  came  off  unhurt, 
wore  excellent  armour  from  head  to  foot,  which  made 
fighting  easy  work,  he  considered.  He  should  not 
have  hurt  his  foot  if  he  had  had  an  iron  shoe  on. 
He  listened  with  great  interest  to  a  new  story  of 
Philip's  about  a  man  who  had  a  very  bad  wound  in 
his  foot,  and  cried  out  so  dreadfully  with  the  pain 
that  his  friends  could  bear  with  him  no  longer,  but 
put  him  ashore  on  a  desert  island,  with  nothing  but 
some  wonderful  poisoned  arrows  to  kill  animals 
with  for  food. 

"  I  did  n't  roar  out  a  bit,  you  know,"  Tom  said, 
"  and  I  dare  say  my  foot  was  as  bad  as  his.  It  'a 
cowardly  to  roar." 

But  Maggie  would  have  it  that  when  anything 
hurt  you  very  much,  it  was  quite  permissible  to 
cry  out,  and  it  was  cruel  of  people  not  to  bear  it. 
She  wanted  to  know  if  Philoctetes  had  a  sister,  and 
why  she  did  n't  go  with  him  on  the  desert  island 
and  take  care  of  him. 

One  day,  soon  after  Philip  had  told  this  story,  he 
and  Maggie  were  in  the  study  alone  together  while 
Tom's  foot  was  being  dressed.  Philip  was  at  his 
books,  and  Maggie,  after  sauntering  idly  round  the 


SCHOOL-TIME.  259 

room,  not  caring  to  do  anything  in  particular,  be- 
cause she  would  soon  go  to  Tom  again,  went  and 
leaned  on  the  table  near  Philip  to  see  what  he  was 
doing,  for  they  were  quite  old  friends  now,  and 
perfectly  at  home  with  each  other. 

"  What  are  you  reading  about  in  Greek  ? "  she 
said.  "  It 's  poetry,  —  I  can  see  that,  because  the 
lines  are  so  short." 

"  It 's  about  Philoctetes,  —  the  lame  man  I  was 
telling  you  of  yesterday,"  he  answered,  resting  his 
head  on  his  hand,  arid  looking  at  her,  as  if  he  were 
not  at  all  sorry  to  be  interrupted.  Maggie,  in  her 
absent  way,  continued  to  lean  forward,  resting  on 
her  arms  and  moving  her  feet  about,  while  her  dark 
eyes  got  more  and  more  fixed  and  vacant,  as  if  she 
had  quite  forgotten  Philip  and  his  book. 

"  Maggie,"  said  Philip,  after  a  minute  or  two,  still 
leaning  on  his  elbow  and  looking  at  her,  "if  you  had 
had  a  brother  like  me,  do  you  think  you  should  have 
loved  him  as  well  as  Tom  ?  " 

Maggie  started  a  little  on  being  roused  from  her 
reverie,  and  said,  "  What  ? "  Philip  repeated  his 
question. 

"  Oh  yes,  better,"  she  answered  immediately. 
"No,  not  better;  because  I  don't  think  I  could  love 
you  better  than  Tom.  But  I  should  be  so  sorry  — 
so  sorry  for  you." 

Philip  coloured ;  he  had  meant  to  imply,  would 
she  love  him  as  well  in  spite  of  his  deformity,  and 
yet  when  she  alluded  to  it  so  plainly,  he  winced 
under  her  pity.  Maggie,  young  as  she  was,  felt  her 
mistake.  Hitherto  she  had  instinctively  behaved 
as  if  she  were  quite  unconscious  of  Philip's  defor- 
mity :  her  own  keen  sensitiveness  and  experience 
under  family  criticism  sufficed  to  teach  her  this  as 


260  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

well  as  if  she  had  been  directed  by  the  most  finished 
breeding. 

"  But  you  are  so  very  clever,  Philip,  and  you 
can  play  and  sing,"  she  added  quickly.  "  I  wish 
you  were  my  brother.  I  'm  very  fond  of  you.  And 
you  would  stay  at  home  with  me  when  Tom 
went  out,  and  you  would  teach  me  everything,  — 
would  n't  you  ?  Greek  and  everything  ? " 

"But  you'll  go  away  soon,  and  go  to  school, 
Maggie,"  said  Philip,  "and  then  you'll  forget  all 
about  me  and  not  care  for  me  any  more.  And  then 
I  shall  see  you  when  you  're  grown  up,  and  you  '11 
hardly  take  any  notice  of  me." 

"  Oh  no,  I  sha'n't  forget  you,  I  'm  sure,"  said 
Maggie,  shaking  her  head  very  seriously.  "I  never 
forget  anything  and  I  think  about  everybody  when 
I  'm  away  from  them.  I  think  about  poor  Yap,  — 
he 's  got  a  lump  in  his  throat,  and  Luke  says  he  '11 
die.  Only  don't  you  tell  Tom,  because  it  will  vex 
him  so.  You  never  saw  Yap :  he  's  a  queer  little 
dog,  —  nobody  cares  about  him  but  Tom  and  me." 

"  Do  you  care  as  much  about  me  as  you  do  about 
Yap,  Maggie  ? "  said  Philip,  smiling  rather  sadly. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  should  think  so,"  said  Maggie, 
laughing. 

"  I  'm  very  fond  of  you,  Maggie ;  I  shall  never 
forget  you"  said  Philip,  "  and  when  I  'm  very  un- 
happy, I  shall  always  think  of  you,  and  wish  I  had 
a  sister  with  dark  eyes,  just  like  yours." 

"  Why  do  you  like  my  eyes  ? "  said  Maggie,  well 
pleased.  She  had  never  heard  any  one  but  her 
father  speak  of  her  eyes  as  if  they  had  merit. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Philip.  "  They  're  not  like 
any  other  eyes.  They  seem  trying  to  speak  —  try- 
ing to  speak  kindly.  I  don't  like  other  people  to 


SCHOOL-TIME.  261 

look  at  me  much,  but  I  like  you  to  look  at  me, 
Maggie." 

"Why,  I  think  you're  fonder  of  me  than  Tom 
is,"  said  Maggie,  rather  sorrowfully.  Then,  won- 
dering how  she  could  convince  Philip  that  she 
could  like  him  just  as  well,  although  he  was 
crooked,  she  said,  — 

"  Should  you  like  me  to  kiss  you,  as  I  do  Tom  ? 
I  will,  if  you  like." 

"  Yes,  very  much  ;  nobody  kisses  me." 

Maggie  put  her  arm  round  his  neck,  and  kissed 
him  quite  earnestly. 

"  There  now,"  she  said,  "  I  shall  always  remem- 
ber you,  and  kiss  you  when  I  see  you  again,  if  it 's 
ever  so  long.  But  I  '11  go  now,  because  I  think  Mr. 
Askern  's  done  with  Tom's  foot." 

When  their  father  came  the  second  time,  Maggie 
said  to  him,  "  Oh,  father,  Philip  Wakem  is  so  very 
good  to  Tom,  —  he  is  such  a  clever  boy,  and  I  do 
love  him.  And  you  love  him  too,  Tom,  don't  you  ? 
Say  you  love  him,"  she  added  entreatingly. 

Tom  coloured  a  little  as  he  looked  at  his  father, 
and  said,  "  I  sha'n't  be  friends  with  him  when  I 
leave  school,  father ;  but  we  Ve  made  it  up  now, 
since  my  foot  has  been  bad,  and  he 's  taught  me  to 
play  at  draughts,  and  I  can  beat  him." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  "if  he's  good  to 
you,  try  and  make  him  amends,  and  be  good  to 
him.  He 's  a  poor  crooked  creatur,  and  takes  after 
his  dead  mother.  But  don't  you  be  getting  too 
thick  with  him, — he's  got  his  father's  blood  in  him 
too.  Ay,  ay,  the  gray  colt  may  chance  to  kick 
like  his  black  sire." 

The  jarring  natures  of  the  two  boys  effected  what 
Mr.  Tulliver's  admonition  alone  might  have  failed  to 


262  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

effect :  in  spite  of  Philip's  new  kindness,  and  Tom's 
answering  regard  in  this  time  of  his  trouble,  they 
never  became  close  friends.  When  Maggie  was 
gone,  and  when  Tom  by  and  by  began  to  walk 
about  as  usual,  the  friendly  warmth  that  had  been 
kindled  by  pity  and  gratitude  died  out  by  degrees, 
and  left  them  in  their  old  relation  to  each  other. 
Philip  was  often  peevish  and  contemptuous ;  and 
Tom's  more  specific  and  kindly  impressions  grad- 
ually melted  into  the  old  background  of  suspicion 
and  dislike  towards  him  as  a  queer  fellow,  a  hump- 
back, and  the  son  of  a  rogue.  If  boys  and  men  are 
to  be  welded  together  in  the  glow  of  transient  feel- 
ing, they  must  be  made  of  metal  that  will  mix,  else 
they  inevitably  fall  asunder  when  the  heat  dies 
out 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  GOLDEN  GATES  ARE  PASSED. 

So  Tom  went  on  even  to  the  fifth  half-year  —  till 
he  was  turned  sixteen  —  at  King's  Lorton,  while 
Maggie  was  growing,  with  a  rapidity  which  her 
aunts  considered  highly  reprehensible,  at  Miss 
Firniss's  boarding-school  in  the  ancient  town  of 
Laceham  on  the  Floss,  with  cousin  Lucy  for  her 
companion.  In  her  early  letters  to  Tom  she  had 
always  sent  her  love  to  Philip,  and  asked  many 
questions  about  him,  which  were  answered  by  brief 
sentences  about  Tom's  toothache,  and  a  turf-house 
which  he  was  helping  to  build  in  the  garden,  with 
other  items  of  that  kind.  She  was  pained  to  hear 
Tom  say  in  the  holidays  that  Philip  was  as  queer  as 
ever  again,  and  often  cross  :  they  were  no  longer  very 
good  friends,  she  perceived  ;  and  when  she  reminded 
Tom  that  he  ought  always  to  love  Philip  for  being 
so  good  to  him  when  his  foot  was  bad,  he  answered, 
"  Well,  it  is  n't  my  fault :  /  don't  do  anything  to 
him."  She  hardly  ever  saw  Philip  during  the  re- 
mainder of  their  school-life ;  in  the  Midsummer 
holidays  he  was  always  away  at  the  seaside,  and  at 
Christmas  she  could  only  meet  him  at  long  inter- 
vals in  the  streets  of  St.  Ogg's.  When  they  did 
meet,  she  remembered  her  promise  to  kiss  him  ;  but, 
as  a  young  lady  who  had  been  at  a  boarding-school, 
she  knew  now  that  such  a  greeting  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  Philip  would  not  expect  it.  The 


264  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

promise  was  void,  like  so  many  other  sweet,  illusory 
promises  of  our  childhood;  void  as  promises  made 
in  Eden  before  the  seasons  were  divided,  and  when 
the  starry  blossoms  grew  side  by  side  with  the 
ripening  peach,  —  impossible  to  be  fulfilled  when 
the  golden  gates  had  been  passed. 

But  when  their  father  was  actually  engaged  in 
the  long-threatened  lawsuit,  and  Wakem,  as  the 
agent  at  once  of  Pivart  and  Old  Harry,  was  acting 
against  him,  even  Maggie  felt,  with  some  sadness, 
that  they  were  not  likely  ever  to  have  any  intimacy 
with  Philip  again ;  the  very  name  of  Wakem  made 
her  father  angry,  and  she  had  once  heard  him  say, 
that  if  that  crook-backed  son  lived  to  inherit  his 
father's  ill-gotten  gains,  there  would  be  a  curse 
upon  him.  "  Have  as  little  to  do  with  him  at 
school  as  you  can,  my  lad,"  he  said  to  Tom ;  and  the 
command  was  obeyed  the  more  easily  because  Mr. 
Stelling  by  this  time  had  two  additional  pupils; 
for  though  this  gentleman's  rise  in  the  world  was 
not  of  that  meteor-like  rapidity  which  the  admirers 
of  his  extemporaneous  eloquence  had  expected  for  a 
preacher  whose  voice  demanded  so  wide  a  sphere, 
he  had  yet  enough  of  growing  prosperity  to  enable 
him  to  increase  his  expenditure  in  continued  dispro- 
portion to  his  income. 

As  for  Tom's  school  course,  it  went  on  with  mill- 
like  monotony,  his  mind  continuing  to  move  with 
a  slow,  half-stifled  pulse  in  a  medium  of  unin- 
teresting or  unintelligible  ideas.  But  each  vaca- 
tion he  brought  home  larger  and  larger  drawings 
with  the  satiny  rendering  of  landscape,  and  water- 
colours  in  vivid  greens,  together  with  manuscript 
books  full  of  exercises  and  problems,  in  which  the 
handwriting  was  all  the  finer  because  he  gave  his 


SCHOOL-TIME.  265 

whole  mind  to  it.  Each  vacation  he  brought  home 
a  new  book  or  two,  indicating  his  progress  through 
different  stages  of  history,  Christian  doctrine,  and 
Latin  literature  ;  and  that  passage  was  not  entirely 
without  result,  besides  the  possession  of  the  books. 
Tom's  ear  and  tongue  had  become  accustomed  to  a 
great  many  words  and  phrases  which  are  understood 
to  be  signs  of  an  educated  condition ;  and  though 
he  had  never  really  applied  his  mind  to  any  one  of 
his  lessons,  the  lessons  had  left  a  deposit  of  vague, 
fragmentary,  ineffectual  notions.  Mr.  Tulliver,  see- 
ing signs  of  acquirement  beyond  the  reach  of  his 
own  criticism,  thought  it  was  probably  all  right  with 
Tom's  education  :  he  observed,  indeed,  that  there 
were  no  maps,  and  not  enough  "  summing ; "  but  he 
made  no  formal  complaint  to  Mr.  Stelling.  It  was 
a  puzzling  business,  this  schooling ;  and  if  he  took 
Tom  away,  where  could  he  send  him  with  better 
effect  ? 

By  the  time  Tom  had  reached  his  last  quarter 
at  King's  Lorton,  the  years  had  made  striking 
changes  in  him  since  the  day  we  saw  him  returning 
from  Mr.  Jacobs's  academy.  He  was  a  tall  youth 
now,  carrying  himself  without  the  least  awkward- 
ness, and  speaking  without  more  shyness  than  was  a 
becoming  symptom  of  blended  diffidence  and  pride  : 
he  wore  his  tail-coat  and  his  stand-up  collars,  and 
watched  the  down  on  his  lip  with  eager  impatience, 
looking  every  day  at  his  virgin  razor,  with  which 
he  had  provided  himself  in  the  last  holidays. 
Philip  had  already  left,  —  at  the  autumn  quarter, 
—  that  he  might  go  to  the  south  for  the  winter,  for 
the  sake  of  his  health ;  and  this  change  helped 
to  give  Tom  the  unsettled,  exultant  feeling  that 
usually  belongs  to  the  last  months  before  leaving 


266  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

school.  This  quarter,  too,  there  was  some  hope  of 
his  father's  lawsuit  being  decided :  that  made  the 
prospect  of  home  more  entirely  pleasurable.  For 
Tom,  who  had  gathered  his  view  of  the  case  from 
his  father's  conversation,  had  no  doubt  that  Pivart 
would  be  beaten. 

Tom  had  not  heard  anything  from  home  for 
some  weeks,  —  a  fact  which  did  not  surprise  him, 
for  his  father  and  mother  were  not  apt  to  manifest 
their  affection  in  unnecessary  letters,  —  when,  to 
his  great  surprise,  on' the  morning  of  a  dark  cold 
day  near  the  end  of  November,  he  was  told,  soon 
after  entering  the  study  at  nine  o'clock,  that  his 
sister  was  in  the  drawing-room.  It  was  Mrs.  Stel- 
ling  who  had  come  into  the  study  to  tell  him,  and 
she  left  him  to  enter  the  drawing-room  alone. 

Maggie,  too,  was  tall  now,  with  braided  and 
coiled  hair :  she  was  almost  as  tall  as  Tom,  though 
she  was  only  thirteen ;  and  she  really  looked  older 
than  he  did  at  that  moment.  She  had  thrown  off 
her  bonnet,  her  heavy  braids  were  pushed  back 
from  her  forehead,  as  if  it  would  not  bear  that 
extra  load,  and  her  young  face  had  a  strangely 
worn  look,  as  her  eyes  turned  anxiously  towards 
the  door.  When  Tom  entered  she  did  not  speak, 
but  only  went  up  to  him,  put  her  arms  round  his 
neck,  and  kissed  him  earnestly.  He  was  used  to 
various  moods  of  hers,  and  felt  no  alarm  at  the 
unusual  seriousness  of  her  greeting. 

"Why,  how  is  it  you're  come  so  early  this  cold 
morning,  Maggie  ?  Did  you  come  in  the  gig  ? " 
said  Tom,  as  she  backed  towards  the  sofa,  and 
drew  him  to  her  side. 

"  No,  I  came  by  the  coach.  I  Ve  walked  from 
the  turnpike." 


SCHOOL-TIME.  267 

"  But  how  is  it  you  're  not  at  school  ?  The  holi- 
days have  not  begun  yet  ? " 

"  Father  wanted  me  at  home,"  said  Maggie,  with 
a  slight  trembling  of  the  lip.  "  I  came  home  three 
or  four  days  ago." 

"Isn't  my  father  well?"  said  Tom,  rather 
anxiously. 

'•'  Not  quite,"  said  Maggie.  "  He 's  very  unhappy, 
Tom.  The  lawsuit  is  ended,  and  I  came  to  tell  you 
because  I  thought  it  would  be  better  for  you  to 
know  it  before  you  came  home,  and  I  did  n't  like 
only  to  send  y.ou  a  letter." 

"My  father  hasn't  lost?"  said  Tom,  hastily, 
springing  from  the  sofa,  and  standing  before  Maggie 
with  his  hands  suddenly  thrust  in  his  pockets. 

"  Yes,  dear  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  looking  up  at  him 
with  trembling. 

Tom  was  silent  a  minute  or  two,  with  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  floor.  Then  he  said,  — 

"  My  father  will  have  to  pay  a  good  deal  of 
money,  then  ? " 

"  Yes,"  said  Maggie,  rather  faintly. 

"  Well,  it  can't  be  helped,"  said  Tom,  bravely,  not 
translating  the  loss  of  a  large  sum  of  money  into 
any  tangible  results.  "  But  my  father 's  very  much 
vexed,  I  dare  say  ? "  he  added,  looking  at  Maggie, 
and  thinking  that  her  agitated  face  was  only  part 
of  her  girlish  way  of  taking  things. 

"Yes,"  said  Maggie,  again  faintly.  Then,  urged 
to  fuller  speech  by  Tom's  freedom  from  apprehen- 
sion, she  said  loudly  and  rapidly,  as  if  the  words 
would  burst  from  her,  "  Oh,  Tom,  he  will  lose  the 
mill  and  the  land,  and  everything;  he  will  have 
nothing  left." 

Tom's  eyes  flashed  out  one  look  of  surprise  at 


268  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

her,  before  he  turned  pale,  and  trembled  visibly. 
He  said  nothing,  but  sat  down  on  the  sofa  again, 
looking  vaguely  out  of  the  opposite  window. 

Anxiety  about  the  future  had  never  entered  Tom's 
mind.  His  father  had  always  ridden  a  good  horse, 
kept  a  good  house,  and  had  the  cheerful,  confident 
air  of  a  man  who  has  plenty  of  property  to  fall  back 
upon.  Tom  had  never  dreamed  that  his  father 
would  "  fail ; "  that  was  a  form  of  misfortune  which 
he  had  always  heard  spoken  of  as  a  deep  disgrace, 
and  disgrace  was  an  idea  that  he  could  not  asso- 
ciate with  any  of  his  relations,  least  of  all  with  his 
father.  A  proud  sense  of  family  respectability  was 
part  of  the  very  air  Tom  had  been  born  and  brought 
up  in.  He  knew  there  were  people  in  St.  Ogg's  who 
made  a  show  without  money  to  support  it,  and  he 
had  always  heard  such  people  spoken  of  by  his  own 
friends  with  contempt  and  reprobation.  He  had  a 
strong  belief,  which  was  a  lifelong  habit,  and  re- 
quired no  definite  evidence  to  rest  on,  that  his 
father  could  spend  a  great  deal  of  money  if  he 
chose;  and  since  his  education  at  Mr.  Stelling's 
had  given  him  a  more  expensive  view  of  life,  he 
had  often  thought  that  when  he  got  older  he  would 
make  a  figure  in  the  world,  with  his  horse  and  dogs 
and  saddle,  and  other  accoutrements  of  a  fine  young 
man,  and  show  himself  equal  to  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries at  St.  Ogg's,  who  might  consider  themselves 
a  grade  above  him  in  society,  because  their  fathers 
were  professional  men  or  had  large  oil-mills.  As 
to  the  prognostics  and  headshaking  of  his  aunts 
and  uncles,  they  had  never  produced  the  least 
effect  on  him,  except  to  make  him  think  that  aunts 
and  uncles  were  disagreeable  society :  he  had  heard 
them  find  fault  in  much  the  same  way  as  long  as  he 


SCHOOL-TIME.  269 

could  remember.  His  father  knew  better  than  they 
did. 

The  down  had  come  on  Tom's  lip,  yet  his  thoughts 
and  expectations  had  been  hitherto  only  the  repro- 
duction, in  changed  forms,  of  the  boyish  dreams 
in  which  he  had  lived  three  years  ago.  He  was 
awakened  now  with  a  violent  shock. 

Maggie  was  frightened  at  Tom's  pale,  trembling 
silence.  There  was  something  else  to  tell  him, — 
something  worse.  She  threw  her  arms  round  him 
at  last,  and  said,  with  a  half  sob,  — 

"  Oh,  Tom,— dear,  dear  Tom,  don't  fret  too  much, 

—  try  and  bear  it  well." 

Tom  turned  his  cheek  passively  to  meet  her  en- 
treating kisses,  and  there  gathered  a  moisture  in 
his  eyes,  which  he  just  rubbed  away  with  his  hand. 
The  action  seemed  to  rouse  him,  for  he  shook  him- 
self and  said,  "I  shall  go  home  with  you,  Maggie. 
Did  n't  my  father  say  I  was  to  go  ? 

"No,  Tom,  father  didn't  wish  it,"  said  Maggie, 
her  anxiety  about  his  feeling  helping  her  to  master 
her  agitation.  What  would  he  do  when  she  told 
him  all?  "But  mother  wants  you  to  come, — 
poor  mother !  —  she  cries  so.  Oh,  Tom,  it 's  very 
dreadful  at  home." 

Maggie's  lips  grew  whiter,  and  she  began  to 
tremble  almost  as  Tom  had  done.  The  two  poor 
things  clung  closer  to  each  other, —  both  trembling, 

—  the  one  at  an  unshapen  fear,  the  other  at  the 
image  of  a  terrible  certainty.     When  Maggie  spoke, 
it  was  hardly  above  a  whisper. 

"  And  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  poor  father  — " 
Maggie  could  not   utter   it.     But   the  suspense 
was  intolerable  to  Torn.     A  vague  idea   of  going 
to  prison,  as  a  consequence  of  debt,  was  the  shape 
his  fears  had  begun  to  take. 


270  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"Where's  my  father?"  he  said  impatiently. 
"  Tell  me,  Maggie." 

"  He 's  at  home,"  said  Maggie,  finding  it  easier  to 
reply  to  that  question.  "  But,"  she  added,  after  a 
pause,  "not  himself.  ...  He  fell  off  his  horse. 
...  He  has  known  nobody  but  me  ever  since.  .  .  . 
He  seems  to  have  lost  his  senses.  .  .  .  Oh,  father, 
father  —  " 

With  these  last  words,  Maggie's  sobs  burst  forth 
with  the  more  violence  for  the  previous  struggle 
against  them.  Tom  felt  that  pressure  of  the  heart 
which  forbids  tears:  he  had  no  distinct  vision  of 
their  troubles  as  Maggie  had,  who  had  been  at 
home;  he  only  felt  the  crushing  weight  of  what 
seemed  unmitigated  misfortune.  He  tightened  his 
arm  almost  convulsively  round  Maggie  as  she  sobbed, 
but  his  face  looked  rigid  and  tearless,  his  eyes 
blank,  as  if  a  black  curtain  of  cloud  had  suddenly 
fallen  on  his  path. 

But  Maggie  soon  checked  herself  abruptly:  a 
single  thought  had  acted  on  her  like  a  startling 
sound. 

"  We  must  set  out,  Tom,  —  we  must  not  stay,  — 
father  will  miss  me,  —  we  must  be  at  the  turnpike 
at  ten  to  meet  the  coach."  She  said  this  with  hasty 
decision,  rubbing  her  eyes,  and  rising  to  seize  her 
bonnet. 

Tom  at  once  felt  the  same  impulse,  and  rose 
too.  "  Wait  a  minute,  Maggie,"  he  said.  "  I  must 
speak  to  Mr.  Stelling,  and  then  we'll  go." 

He  thought  he  must  go  to  the  study  where  the 
pupils  were,  but  on  his  way  he  met  Mr.  Stelling, 
who  had  heard  from  his  wife  that  Maggie  appeared 
to  be  in  trouble  when  she  asked  for  her  brother ; 
and,  now  that  he  thought  the  brother  and  sister 


SCHOOL-TIME.  '  271 

had  been  alone  long  enough,  was  coming  to  inquire 
and  offer  his  sympathy. 

"  Please,  sir,  I  must  go  home,"  Tom  said  abruptly, 
as  he  met  Mr.  Stelling  in  the  passage.  "I  must 
go  back  with  my  sister  directly.  My  father 's  lost 
his  lawsuit  —  he 's  lost  all  his  property  —  and  he  's 
very  ill." 

Mr.  Stelling  felt  like  a  kind-hearted  man;  he 
foresaw  a  probable  money  loss  for  himself,  but  this 
had  no  appreciable  share  in  his  feeling,  while  he 
looked  with  grave  pity  at  the  brother  and  sister 
for  whom  youth  and  sorrow  had  begun  together. 
When  he  knew  how  Maggie  had  come,  and  how 
eager  she  was  to  get  home  again,  he  hurried  their 
departure,  only  whispering  something  to  Mrs.  Stel- 
ling, who  had  followed  him,  and  who  immediately 
left  the  room. 

Tom  and  Maggie  were  standing  on  the  door-step, 
ready  to  set  out,  when  Mrs.  Stelling  came  with  a 
little  basket,  which  she  hung  on  Maggie's  arm, 
saying,  "Do  remember  to  eat  something  on  the 
way,  dear."  Maggie's  heart  went  out  towards  this 
woman  whom  she  had  never  liked,  and  she  kissed 
her  silently.  It  was  the  first  sign  within  the  poor 
child  of  that  new  sense  which  is  the  gift  of  sorrow, 
• —  that  susceptibility  to  the  bare  offices  of  humanity, 
which  raises  them  into  a  bond  of  loving  fellowship, 
as  to  haggard  men  among  the  icebergs  the  mere 
presence  of  an  ordinary  comrade  stirs  the  deep 
fountains  of  affection. 

Mr.  Stelling  put  his  hand  on  Tom's  shoulder  and 
said,  "  God  bless  you,  my  boy ;  let  me  know  how 
you  get  on."  Then  he  pressed  Maggie's  hand ;  but 
there  were  no  audible  good-byes.  Tom  had  so 
often  thought  how  joyful  he  should  be  the  day 


272  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

he  left  school  "for  good!"  And  now  his  school 
years  seemed  like  a  holiday  that  had  come  to  an 
end. 

The  two  slight  youthful  figures  soon  grew  indis- 
tinct on  the  distant  road,  —  were  soon  lost  behind 
the  projecting  hedgerow. 

They  had  gone  forth  together  into  their  new 
life  of  sorrow,  and  they  would  nevermore  see  the 
sunshine  undimmed  by  remembered  cares.  They 
had  entered  the  thorny  wilderness,  and  the  golden 
gates  of  their  childhood  had  forever  closed  behind 
them. 


BOOK    III. 

THE    DOWNFALL. 


CHAPTER   I. 
WHAT   HAD   HAPPENED   AT   HOME. 

WHEN  Mr.  Tulliver  first  knew  the  fact  that  the 
lawsuit  was  decided  against  him,  and  that  Pivart  and 
Wakem  were  triumphant,  every  one  who  happened 
to  observe  him  at  the  time  thought  that,  for  so 
confident  and  hot-tempered  a  man,  he  bore  the 
blow  remarkably  well.  He  thought  so  himself: 
he  thought  he  was  going  to  show  that  if  Wakem 
or  anybody  else  considered  him  crushed,  they  would 
find  themselves  mistaken.  He  could  not  refuse 
to  see  that  the  costs  of  this  protracted  suit  would 
take  more  than  he  possessed  to  pay  them ;  but  he 
appeared  to  himself  to  be  full  of  expedients  by 
which  he  could  ward  off  any  results  but  such  as 
were  tolerable,  and  could  avoid  the  appearance  of 
breaking  down  in  the  world.  All  the  obstinacy 
and  defiance  of  his  nature,  driven  out  of  their  old 
channel,  found  a  vent  for  themselves  in  the  im- 
mediate formation  of  plans  by  which  he  would 
meet  his  difficulties,  and  remain  Mr.  Tulliver  of 
Dorlcote  Mill  in  spite  of  them.  There  was  such 
a  rush  of  projects  in  his  brain,  that  it  was  no  won- 
der his  face  was  flushed  when  he  came  away  from 

VOL.  I.  —  18 


274  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

his  talk  with  his  attorney,  Mr.  Gore,  and  mounted 
his  horse  to  ride  home  from  Lindum.  There  was 
Furley,  who  held  the  mortgage  on  the  land,  —  a 
reasonable  fellow,  who  would  see  his  own  interest, 
Mr.  Tulliver  was  convinced,  and  who  would  be 
glad  not  only  to  purchase  the  whole  estate,  includ- 
ing the  mill  and  homestead,  but  would  accept  Mr. 
Tulliver  as  tenant,  and  be  willing  to  advance  money 
to  be  repaid  with  high  interest  out  of  the  profits 
of  the  business,  which  would  be  made  over  to  him, 
Mr.  Tulliver  only  taking  enough  barely  to  maintain 
himself  and  his  family.  Who  would  neglect  such 
a  profitable  investment  ?  Certainly  not  Furley, 
for  Mr.  Tulliver  had  determined  that  Furley  should 
meet  his  plans  with  the  utmost  alacrity ;  and  there 
are  men  whose  brains  have  not  yet  been  danger- 
ously heated  by  the  loss  of  a  lawsuit,  who  are  apt 
to  see  in  their  own  interest  or  desires  a  motive 
for  other  men's  actions.  There  was  no  doubt  (in 
the  miller's  mind)  that  Furley  would  do  just  what 
was  desirable ;  and  if  he  did  —  why,  things  would 
not  be  so  very  much  worse.  Mr.  Tulliver  and  his 
family  must  live  more  meagrely  and  humbly,  but 
it  would  only  be  till  the  profits  of  the  business  had 
paid  off  Furley's  advances,  and  that  might  be  while 
Mr.  Tulliver  had  still  a  good  many  years  of  life 
before  him.  It  was  clear  that  the  costs  of  the 
suit  could  be  paid  without  his  being  obliged  to 
turn  out  of  his  old  place,  and  look  like  a  ruined  man. 
It  was  certainly  an  awkwaid  moment  in  his  affairs. 
There  was  that  suretyship  for  poor  Riley,  who  had 
died  suddenly  last  April,  and  left  his  friend  saddled 
with  a  debt  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  —  a 
fact  which  had  helpe  1  to  make  Mr.  Tulliver's  bank- 
ing-book less  pLasant  leading  than  a  man  might 


THE  DOWNFALL.  275 

desire  towards  Christmas.  Well !  he  had  never 
been  one  of  those  poor-spirited  sneaks  who  would 
refuse  to  give  a  helping  hand  to  a  fellow-traveller 
in  this  puzzling  world.  The  really  vexatious  busi- 
ness was  the  fact  that  some  months  ago  the  creditor 
who  had  lent  him  the  five  hundred  pounds  to 
repay  Mrs.  Grlegg  had  become  uneasy  about  his 
money  (set  on  by  Wakem,  of  course),  and  Mr.  Tul- 
liver,  still  confident  that  he  should  gain  his  suit, 
and  finding  it  eminently  inconvenient  to  raise  the 
said  sum  until  that  desirable  issue  had  taken  place, 
had  rashly  acceded  to  the  demand  that  he  should 
give  a  bill  of  sale  on  his  household  furniture,  and 
some  other  effects,  as  security  in  lieu  of  the  bond. 
It  was  all  one,  he  had  said  to  himself :  he  should 
soon  pay  off  the  money,  and  there  was  no  harm 
in  giving  that  security  any  more  than  another. 
But  now  the  consequences  of  this  bill  of  sale  oc- 
curred to  him  in  a  new  light,  and  he  remembered 
that  the  time  was  close  at  hand  when  it  would 
be  enforced  unless  the  money  were  repaid.  Two 
months  ago  he  would  have  declared  stoutly  that 
he  would  never  be  beholden  to  his  wife's  friends ; 
but  now  he  told  himself  as  stoutly  that  it  was 
nothing  but  right  and  natural  that  Bessy  should 
go  to  the  Pullets  and  explain  the  thing  to  them : 
they  would  hardly  let  Bessy's  furniture  be  sold, 
and  it  might  be  security  to  Pullet  if  he  advanced 
the  money,  —  there  would,  after  all,  be  no  gift  or 
favour  in  the  matter.  Mr.  Tulliver  would  never 
have  asked  for  anything  from  so  poor-spirited  a 
fellow  for  himself,  but  Bessy  might  do  so  if  she 
liked. 

It  is  precisely  the  proudest  and  most  obstinate 
men  who  are  the  most  liable  to  shift  their  position 


276  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

and  contradict  themselves  in  this  sudden  manner : 
everything  is  easier  to  them  than  to  face  the  simple 
fact  that  they  have  been  thoroughly  defeated,  and 
musfc  begin  life  anew.  And  Mr.  Tulliver,  you  per- 
ceive, though  nothing  more  than  a  superior  miller 
and  maltster,  was  as  proud  and  obstinate  as  if  he 
had  been  a  very  lofty  personage,  in  whom  such 
dispositions  might  be  a  source  of  that  conspicuous, 
far-echoing  tragedy  which  sweeps  the  stage  in  regal 
robes,  and  makes  the  dullest  chronicler  sublime. 
The  pride  and  obstinacy  of  millers,  and  other  insig- 
nificant people,  whom  you  pass  unnoticingly  on  the 
roai  every  day,  have  their  tragedy  too ;  but  it  is  of 
that  unwept,  hidden  sort,  that  goes  on  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  and  leaves  no  record,  —  such 
tragedy,  perhaps,  as  Ins  in  the  conflicts  of  young 
souls,  hungry  for  joy,  under  a  lot  made  suddenly 
hard  to  them,  under  the  dreariness  of  a  home  where 
the  morning  brings  no  promise  with  it,  and  where 
the  unexpectant  discontent  of  worn  and  disappointed 
parents  weighs  on  the  children  like  a  damp,  thick 
air,  in  which  all  the  functions  of  life  are  depressed ; 
or  such  tragedy  as  lies  in  the  slow  or  sudden  death 
that  follows  on  a  bruised  passion,  though  it  may  be 
a  death  that  finds  only  a  parish  funeral.  There  are 
certain  animals  to  which  tenacity  of  position  is  a 
law  of  life,  —  they  can  never  flourish  again,  after  a 
single  wrench  ;  and  there  are  certain  human  beings 
to  whom  predominance  is  a  law  of  life,  —  they  can 
only  sustain  humiliation  so  long  as  they  can  refuse 
to  believe  in  it,  and,  in  their  own  conception,  pre- 
dominate still. 

Mr.  Tulliver  was  still  predominating  in  his  own 
imagination  as  he  approached  St.  Ogg's,  through 
which  he  had  to  pass  on  his  way  homeward.  But 


THE  DOWNFALL.  277 

what  was  it  that  suggested  to  him,  as  he  saw  the 
Laceham  coach  entering  the  town,  to  follow  it  to  the 
coach-office,  and  get  the  clerk  there  to  write  a  letter 
requiring  Maggie  to  come  home  the  very  next  day  ? 
Mr.  Tulliver's  own  hand  shook  too  much  under  his 
excitement  for  him  to  write  himself,  and  he  wanted 
the  letter  to  be  given  to  the  coachman  to  deliver  at 
Miss  Firniss's  school  in  the  morning.  There  was  a 
craving  which  he  would  not  account  for  to  himself, 
to  have  Maggie  near  him  —  without  delay  —  she 
must  come  back  by  the  coach  to-morrow. 

To  Mrs.  Tulliver,  when  he  got  home,  he  would 
admit  no  difficulties,  and  scolded  down  her  burst  of 
grief  on  hearing  that  the  lawsuit  was  lost,  by  angry 
assertions  that  there  was  nothing  to  grieve  about. 
He  said  nothing  to  her  that  night  about  the  bill  of 
sale,  and  the  application  to  Mrs.  Pullet,  for  he  had 
kept  her  in  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  that  transac- 
tion, and  had  explained  the  necessity  for  taking  an 
inventory  of  the  goods  as  a  matter  connected  with 
his  will.  The  possession  of  a  wife  conspicuously 
one's  inferior  in  intellect  is,  like  other  high  privi- 
leges, attended  with  a  few  inconveniences,  and, 
among  the  rest,  with  the  occasional  necessity  for 
using  a  little  deception. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Tulliver  was  again  on  horse- 
back in  the  afternoon,  on  his  way  to  Mr.  Gore's 
office  at  St.  Ogg's.  Gore  was  to  have  seen  Furley 
in  the  morning,  and  to  have  sounded  him  in  relation 
to  Mr.  Tulliver's  affairs.  But  he  had  not  gone  half- 
way when  he  met  a  clerk  from  Mr.  Gore's  office, 
who  was  bringing  a  letter  to  Mr.  Tulliver.  Mr.  Gore 
had  been  prevented  by  a  sudden  call  of  business 
from  waiting  at  his  office  to  see  Mr.  Tulliver,  accord- 
ing to  appointment,  but  would  be  at  his  office  at 


278  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

eleven  to-morrow  morning,  and  meanwhile  had  sent 
some  important  information  by  letter. 

"  Oh  ! "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  taking  the  letter,  but 
not  opening  it.  "Then  tell  Gore  I'll  see  him  to- 
morrow at  eleven;"  and  he  turned  his  horse. 

The  clerk,  struck  with  Mr.  Tulliver's  glistening, 
excited  glance,  looked  after  him  for  a  few  moments, 
and  then  rode  away.  The  reading  of  a  letter  was 
not  the  affair  of  an  instant  to  Mr.  Tulliver  ;  he  took 
in  the  sense  of  a  statement  very  slowly  through  the 
medium  of  written  or  even  printed  characters ;  so 
he  had  put  the  letter  in  his  pocket,  thinking  he 
would  open  it  in  his  arm-chair  at  home.  But  by 
and  by  it  occurred  to  him  that  there  might  be 
something  in  the  letter  Mrs.  Tulliver  must  not 
know  about,  and,  if  so,  it  would  be  better  to  keep  it 
out  of  her  sight  altogether.  He  stopped  his  horse, 
took  out  the  letter,  and  read  it.  It  was  only  a 
short  letter ;  the  substance  was  that  Mr.  Gore 
had  ascertained,  on  secret  but  sure  authority,  that 
Furley  had  been  lately  much  straitened  for  money, 
and  had  parted  with  his  securities,  —  among  the 
rest,  the  mortgage  on  Mr.  Tulliver^s  property,  which 
he  had  transferred  to  —  Wakem. 

In  half  an  hour  after  this  Mr.  Tulliver's  own 
wagoner  found  him  lying  by  the  roadside  insensible, 
with  an  open  latter  near  him,  and  his  gray  horse 
snuffing  uneasily  about  him. 

When  Maggie  reached  home  that  evening,  in 
obedience  to  her  father's  call,  he  was  no  longer 
insensible.  About  an  hour  before,  he  had  become 
conscious,  and  after  vague,  vacant  looks  around  him, 
had  muttered  something  about  "  a  letter,"  which  he 
presently  repeated  impatiently.  At  the  instance  of 
Mr.  Turnbull,  the  medical  man,  Gore's  letter  was 


THE  DOWNFALL.  279 

brought  and  laid  on  the  bed,  and  the  previous 
impatience  seemed  to  be  allayed.  The  stricken  man 
lay  for  some  time  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  letter, 
as  if  he  were  trying  to  knit  up  his  thoughts  by  its 
help.  But  presently  a  new  wave  of  memory  seemed 
to  have  come  and  swept  the  other  away ;  he  turned 
his  eyes  from  the  letter  to  the  door,  and  after  look- 
ing uneasily,  as  if  striving  to  see  something  his  eyes 
were  too  dim  for,  he  said,  "  The  little  wench." 

He  repeated  the  words  impatiently  from  time  to 
time,  appearing  entirely  unconscious  of  everything 
except  this  one  importunate  want,  and  giving  no 
sign  of  knowing  his  wife  or  any  one  else ;  and  poor 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  her  feeble  faculties  almost  paralyzed 
by  this  sudden  accumulation  of  troubles,  went  back- 
wards and  forwards  to  the  gate  to  see  if  the  Lace- 
ham  coach  were  coming,  though  it  was  not  yet  time. 

But  it  came  at  last,  and  set  down  the  poor 
anxious  girl,  no  longer  the  "  little  wench  "  except  to 
her  father's  fond  memory. 

"  Oh  mother,  what  is  the  matter  ? "  Maggie  said, 
with  pale  lips,  as  her  mother  came  towards  her 
crying.  She  didn't  think  her  father  was  ill,  be- 
cause the  letter  had  come  at  his  dictation  from  the 
office  at  St.  Ogg's. 

But  Mr.  Turnbull  came  now  to  meet  her:  a 
medical  man  is  the  good  angel  of  the  troubled 
house,  and  Maggie  ran  towards  the  kind  old  friend, 
whom  she  remembered  as  long  as  she  could  remem- 
ber anything,  with  a  trembling,  questioning  look. 

"  Don't  alarm  yourself  too  much,  my  dear,"  he 
said,  taking  her  hand.  "Your  father  has  had  a 
sudden  attack,  and  has  not  quite  recovered  his 
memory.  But  he  has  been  asking  for  you,  and  it 
will  do  him  good  to  see  you.  Keep  as  quiet  as  you 


280  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

can ;  take  off  your  things,  and  come  upstairs  with 
me." 

Maggie  obeyed,  with  that  terrible  beating  of  the 
heart  which  makes  existence  seern  simply  a  painful 
pulsation.  The  very  quietness  with  which  Mr. 
Turnbull  spoke  had  frightened  her  susceptible  im- 
agination. Her  father's  eyes  were  still  turned 
uneasily  towards  the  door  when  she  entered  and 
met  the  strange,  yearning,  helpless  look  that  had 
been  seeking  her  in  vain.  With  a  sudden  flash  and 
movement,  he  raised  himself  in  the  bed, —  she  rushed 
towards  him,  and  clasped  him  with  agonized  kisses. 

Poor  child !  it  was  very  early  for  her  to  know  one 
of  those  supreme  moments  in  life  when  all  we  have 
hoped  or  delighted  in,  all  we  can  dread  or  endure, 
falls  away  from  our  regard  as  insignificant,  —  is  lost, 
like  a  trivial  memory,  in  that  simple,  primitive  love 
which  knits  us  to  the  beings  who  have  been  nearest 
to  us,  in  their  times  of  helplessness  or  of  anguish. 

But  that  flash  of  recognition  had  been  too  great 
a  strain  on  the  father's  bruised,  enfeebled  powers. 
He  sank  back  again  in  renewed  insensibility  and 
rigidity,  which  lasted  for  many  hours,  and  was 
only  broken  by  a  flickering  return  of  consciousness, 
in  which  he  took  passively  everything  that  was  given 
to  him,  and  seemed  to  have  a  sort  of  infantine  satisfac- 
tion in  Maggie's  near  presence,  —  such  satisfaction  as 
a  baby  has  when  it  is  returned  to  the  nurse's  lap. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  sent  for  her  sisters,  and  there  was 
much  wailing  and  lifting  up  of  hands  below  stairs : 
both  uncles  and  aunts  saw  that  the  ruin  of  Bessy 
and  her  family  was  as  complete  as  they  had  ever 
foreboded  it,  and  there  was  a  general  family  sense 
that  a  judgment  had  fallen  on  Mr.  Tulliver,  which 
it  would  be  an  impiety  to  counteract  by  too  much 


THE  DOWNFALL.  281 

kindness.  But  Maggie  heard  little  of  this,  scarcely 
ever  leaving  her  father's  bedside,  where  she  sat 
opposite  him  with  her  hand  on  his.  Mrs.  Tulliver 
wanted  to  have  Tom  fetched  home,  and  seemed  to 
be  thinking  more  of  her  boy  even  than  of  her  hus- 
band ;  but  the  aunts  and  uncles  opposed  this.  Tom 
was  better  at  school,  since  Mr.  Turnbull  said  there 
was  no  immediate  danger,  he  believed.  But  at  the 
end  of  the  second  day,  when  Maggie  had  become 
more  accustomed  to  her  father's  fits  of  insensibility, 
and  to  the  expectation  that  he  would  revive  from 
them,  the  thought  of  Tom  had  become  urgent  with 
her  too ;  and  when  her  mother  sat  crying  at  night 
and  saying,  "  My  poor  lad  ...  it 's  nothing  but  right 
he  should  come  home,"  Maggie  said,  "  Let  me  go 
for  him,  and  tell  him,  mother;  I'll  go  to-morrow 
morning  if  father  does  n't  know  me  and  want  me. 
It  would  be  so  hard  for  Tom  to  come  home  and  not 
know  anything  about  it  beforehand." 

And  the  next  morning  Maggie  went,  as  we  have 
seen.  Sitting  on  the  coach  on  their  way  home,  the 
brother  and  sister  talked  to  each  other  in  sad, 
interrupted  whispers. 

"  They  say  Mr.  Wakem  has  got  a  mortgage  or 
something  on  the  land,  Tom,"  said  Maggie.  "  It 
was  the  letter  with  that  news  in  it  that  made 
father  ill,  they  think." 

"  I  believe  that  scoundrel 's  been  planning  all 
along  to  ruin  my  father,"  said  Tom,  leaping  from 
the  vaguest  impressions  to  a  definite  conclusion. 
"  I  '11  make  him  feel  for  it  when  I  'm  a  man. 
Mind  you  never  speak  to  Philip  again." 

"  Oh,  Tom !  "  said  Maggie,  in  a  tone  of  sad  remon- 
strance ;  but  she  had  no  spirit  to  dispute  anything 
then,  still  less  to  vex  Tom  by  opposing  him. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

MRS.  TULLIVER'S  TERAPHIM,  OR  HOUSEHOLD  GODS. 

WHEN  the  coach  set  down  Tom  and  Maggie,  it 
was  five  hours  since  she  had  started  from  home,  and 
she  was  thinking  with  some  trembling  that  her 
father  had  perhaps  missed  her,  and  asked  for  "  the 
little  wench "  in  vain.  She  thought  of  no  other 
change  that  might  have  happened. 

She  hurried  along  the  gravel-walk,  and  entered 
the  house  before  Tom ;  but  in  the  entrance  she  was 
startled  by  a  strong  smell  of  tobacco.  The  parlour 
door  was  ajar,  —  that  was  where  the  smell  came 
from.  It  was  very  strange :  could  any  visitor  be 
smoking  at  a  time  like  this  ?  Was  her  mother 
there  ?  If  so,  she  must  be  told  that  Tom  was  come. 
Maggie,  after  this  pause  of  surprise,  was  only  in 
the  act  of  opening  the  door  when  Tom  came  up, 
and  they  both  looked  into  the  parlour  together. 
There  was  a  coarse,  dingy  man,  of  whose  face  Tom 
had  some  vague  recollection,  sitting  in  his  father's 
chair,  smoking,  with  a  jug  and  glass  beside  him. 

The  truth  flashed  on  Tom's  mind  in  an  instant. 
To  "  have  the  bailiff  in  the  house  "  and  "  to  be  sold 
up  "  were  phrases  which  he  had  been  used  to,  even 
as  a  little  boy :  they  were  part  of  the  disgrace  and 
misery  of  "  failing,"  of  losing  all  one's  money,  and 
being  ruined,  —  sinking  into  the  condition  of  poor 
working-people.  It  seemed  only  natural  this  should 
happen,  since  his  father  had  lost  all  his  property, 


THE  DOWNFALL.  283 

and  he  thought  of  no  more  special  cause  for  this 
particular  form  of  misfortune  than  the  loss  of  the 
lawsuit.  But  the  immediate  presence  of  this  dis- 
grace was  so  much  keener  an  experience  to  Tom 
than  the  worst  form  of  apprehension,  that  he  felt  at 
this  moment  as  if  his  real  trouble  had  only  just 
begun :  it  was  a  touch  on  the  irritated  nerve  com- 
pared with  its  spontaneous  dull  aching. 

"  How  do  you  do,  sir  ? "  said  the  man,  taking  the 
pipe  out  of  his  mouth,  with  rough,  embarrassed 
civility.  The  two  young  startled  faces  made  him  a 
little  uncomfortable. 

But  Tom  turned  away  hastily  without  speaking  : 
the  sight  was  too  hateful.  Maggie  had  not  under- 
stood the  appearance  of  this  stranger,  as  Tom  had. 
She  followed  him,  whispering,  "  Who  can  it  be, 
Tom  ?  —  what  is  the  matter  ?  "  Then,  with  a  sud- 
den undefined  dread  lest  this  stranger  might  have 
something  to  do  with  a  change  in  her  father,  she 
rushed  upstairs,  checking  herself  at  the  bedroom 
door  to  throw  off  her  bonnet,  and  enter  on  tiptoe. 
All  was  silent  there  ;  her  father  was  lying,  heedless 
of  everything  around  him,  with  his  eyes  closed  as 
when  she  had  left  him.  A  servant  was  there,  but 
not  her  mother. 

"  Where  's  my  mother  ? "  she  whispered.  The 
servant  did  not  know. 

Maggie  hastened  out  and  said  to  Tom,  "  Father  is 
lying  quiet ;  let  us  go  and  look  for  my  mother.  I 
wonder  where  she  is." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  not  downstairs,  not  in  any 
of  the  bedrooms.  There  was  but  one  room  below 
the  attic  which  Maggie  had  left  unsearched ;  it  was 
the  store-room,  where  her  mother  kept  all  her  linen 
and  all  the  precious  "  best  things  "  that  were  only 


284  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

unwrapped  and  brought  out  on  special  occasions. 
Tom,  preceding  Maggie  as  they  returned  along  the 
passage,  opened  the  door  of  this  room,  and  immedi- 
ately said,  "  Mother  !  " 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  seated  there  with  all  her  laid- 
up  treasures.  One  of  the  linen-chests  was  open  : 
the  silver  teapot  was  unwrapped  from  its  many 
folds  of  paper,  and  the  best  china  was  laid  out  on 
the  top  of  the  closed  linen-chest;  spoons  and 
skewers  and  ladles  were  spread  in  rows  on  the 
shelves ;  and  the  poor  woman  was  shaking  her 
head  and  weeping,  with  a  bitter  tension  of  the 
mouth,  over  the  mark,  "  Elizabeth  Dodson,"  on  the 
corner  of  some  table-cloths  she  held  in  her  lap. 

She  dropped  them,  and  started  up  as  Tom  spoke. 

"  Oh,  my  boy,  my  boy  ! "  she  said,  clasping  him 
round  the  neck.  "  To  think  as  I  should  live  to  see 
this  day  !  We  're  ruined  .  .  .  everything 's  going  to 
be  sold  up  ...  to  think  as  your  father  should  ha' 
married  me  to  bring  me  to  this  !  We  've  got  noth- 
ing ...  we  shall  be  beggars  ...  we  must  go  to  the 
workhouse  —  " 

She  kissed  him,  then  seated  herself  again,  and 
took  another  table-cloth  on  her  lap,  unfolding  it  a 
little  way  to  look  at  the  pattern,  while  the  children 
stood  by  in  mute  wretchedness,  —  their  minds  quite 
filled  for  the  moment  with  the  words  "  beggars  " 
and  "  workhouse." 

"  To  think  o'  these  cloths  as  I  spun  myself,"  she 
went  on,  lifting  things  out  and  turning  them  over 
with  an  excitement  all  the  more  strange  and  pite- 
ous because  the  stout  blond  woman  was  usually  so 
passive :  if  she  had  been  ruffled  before,  it  was  at  the 
surface  merely  ;  "  and  Job  Haxey  wove  'em,  and 
brought  the  piece  home  on  his  back,  as  I  remember 


THE  DOWNFALL.  285 

standing  at  the  door  and  seeing  him  come,  before  I 
ever  thought  o'  marrying  your  father !  And  the 
pattern  as  I  chose  myself  —  and  bleached  so  beauti- 
ful, and  I  marked  'em  so  as  nobody  ever  saw  such 
marking,  —  they  must  cut  the  cloth  to  get  it  out, 
for  it 's  a  particular  stitch.  And  they  're  all  to  be 
sold  —  and  go  into  strange  people's  houses,  and  per- 
haps be  cut  with  the  knives,  and  wore  out  before 
I  'm  dead.  You  '11  never  have  one  of  'em,  my  boy," 
she  said,  looking  up  at  Tom  with  her  eyes  full  of 
tears,  "  and  I  meant  'em  for  you.  I  wanted  you  to 
have  all  o'  this  pattern.  Maggie  could  have  had 
the  large  check,  —  it  never  shows  so  well  when  the 
dishes  are  on  it." 

Tom  was  touched  to  the  quick,  but  there  was  an 
angry  reaction  immediately.  His  face  flushed  as  he 
said,  — 

"  But  will  my  aunts  let  them  be  sold,  mother  ? 
Do  they  know  about  it  ?  They  '11  never  let  your 
linen  go,  will  they  ?  Have  n't  you  sent  to  them  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  sent  Luke  directly  they  'd  put  the  bailies 
in,  and  your  aunt  Pullet 's  been  —  and,  oh  dear,  oh 
dear,  she  cries  so,  and  says  your  father's  disgraced 
my  family  and  made  it  the  talk  o'  the  country ;  and 
she  '11  buy  the  spotted  cloths  for  herself,  because 
she  's  never  had  so  many  as  she  wanted  o'  that  pat- 
tern, and  they  sha'n't  go  to  strangers,  but  she  's  got 
more  checks  a'ready  nor  she  can  do  with."  (Here 
Mrs.  Tulliver  began  to  lay  back  the  table-cloths  in 
the  chest,  folding  and  stroking  them  automatically.) 
"And  your  uncle  Glegg's  been  too,  and  he  says 
things  must  be  bought  in  for  us  to  lie  down  on,  but 
he  must  talk  to  your  aunt ;  and  they  're  all  coming 
to  consult.  .  .  .  But  I  know  they'll  none  of  'em 
take  my  chany,"  she  added,  turning  towards  the 


286  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

cups  and  saucers,  —  "  for  they  all  found  fault  with 
'em  when  I  bought  'em  'cause  'o  the  small  gold 
sprig  all  over  'em  between  the  flowers.  But  there 's 
none  of  'em  got  better  chany,  not  even  your  aunt 
Pullet  herself,  —  and  I  bought  it  wi'  my  own  money 
as  I  'd  saved  ever  since  I  was  turned  fifteen ;  and 
the  silver  teapot,  too,  —  your  father  never  paid  for 
'em.  And  to  think  as  he  should  ha'  married  me, 
and  brought  me  to  this." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  burst  out  crying  afresh,  and  she 
sobbed  with  her  handkerchief  at  her  eyes  a  few  mo- 
ments, but  then,  removing  it,  she  said  in  a  deprecat- 
ing way,  still  half  sobbing,  as  if  she  were  called  upon 
to  speak  before  she  could  command  her  voice,  — 

"  And  I  did  say  to  him  times  and  times, '  Whativer 
you  do,  don't  go  to  law,'  —  and  what  more  could  I 
do  ?  I  've  had  to  sit  by  while  my  own  f ortin  's  been 
spent,  and  what  should  ha'  been  my  children's  too. 
You'll  have  niver  a  penny,  my  boy  .  .  .  but  it 
isn't  your  poor  mother's  fault." 

She  put  out  one  arm  towards  Tom,  looking  up  at 
him  piteously  with  her  helpless,  childish  blue  eyes. 
The  poor  lad  went  to  her  and  kissed  her,  and  she 
clung  to  him.  For  the  first  time  Tom  thought  of 
his  father  with  some  reproach.  His  natural  incli- 
nation to  blame,  hitherto  kept  entirely  in  abeyance 
towards  his  father  by  the  predisposition  to  think 
him  always  right,  simply  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  Tom  Tulliver's  father,  was  turned  into  this 
new  channel  by  his  mother's  plaints,  and  with  his 
indignation  against  Wakem  there  began  to  mingle 
some  indignation  of  another  sort.  Perhaps  his 
father  might  have  helped  bringing  them  all  down 
in  the  world,  and  making  people  talk  of  them 
with  contempt;  but  no  one  should  talk  long  of 


THE  DOWNFALL.  287 

Tom  Tulliver  with  contempt.  The  natural  strength 
and  firmness  of  his  nature  was  beginning  to  assert 
itself,  urged  by  the  double  stimulus  of  resentment 
against  his  aunts,  and  the  sense  that  he  must 
behave  like  a  man  and  take  care  of  his  mother. 

"  Don't  fret,  mother,"  he  said  tenderly.  "  I  shall 
soon  be  able  to  get  money :  I  '11  get  a  situation  of 
some  sort." 

"  Bless  you,  my  boy ! "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  a  lit- 
tle soothed.  Then,  looking  round  sadly,  "But  I 
should  n't  ha'  minded  so  much  if  we  could  ha'  kept 
the  things  wi'  my  name  on  'em." 

Maggie  had  witnessed  this  scene  with  gathering 
anger.  The  implied  reproaches  against  her  father 

—  her  father,  who  was  lying  there  in  a  sort  of  living 
death  —  neutralized  all  her  pity  for  griefs  about  table- 
cloths and  china  ;   and   her  anger  on    her  father's 
account   was  heightened  by  some   egoistic    resent- 
ment at  Tom's  silent  concurrence  with  her  mother 
in  shutting   her   out  from  the  common  calamity. 
She  had  become  almost  indifferent  to  her  mother's 
habitual  depreciation  of  her,  but  she  was   keenly 
alive  to  any  sanction  of  it,  however  passive,  that 
she  might  suspect  in  Tom.     Poor  Maggie  was  by 
no  means  made  up  of  unalloyed  devotedness,  but 
put  forth  large  claims  for  herself  where  she  loved 
strongly.     She   burst   out   at   last   in  an  agitated, 
almost  violent  tone,  "  Mother,  how  can  you  talk  so  ? 

—  as  if  you  cared  only  for  things  with  your  name 
on,  and  not  for  what  has  my  father's  name  too  — 
and  to   care  about  anything  but  dear  father  him- 
self I  —  when  he 's  lying  there,  and  may  never  speak 
to  us  again.     Tom,  you  ought  to  say  so  too,  —  you 
ought   not   to   let  any   one    find    fault    with    my 
father." 


288  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Maggie,  almost  choked  with  mingled  grief  and 
anger,  left  the  room,  and  took  her  old  place  on  her 
father's  bed.  Her  heart  went  out  to  him  with  a 
stronger  movement  than  ever,  at  the  thought  that 
people  would  blame  him.  Maggie  hated  blame : 
she  had  been  blamed  all  her  life,  and  nothing  had 
come  of  it  but  evil  tempers.  Her  father  had  always 
defended  and  excused  her,  and  her  loving  remem- 
brance of  his  tenderness  was  a  force  within  her  that 
would  enable  her  to  do  or  bear  anything  for  his 
sake. 

Tom  was  a  little  shocked  at  Maggie's  outburst, 
—  telling  him  as  well  as  his  mother  what  it  was  right 
to  do !  She  ought  to  have  learned  better  than  have 
those  hectoring,  assuming  manners,  by  this  time. 
But  he  presently  went  into  his  father's  room,  and 
the  sight  there  touched  him  in  a  way  that  effaced 
the  slighter  impressions  of  the  previous  hour. 
When  Maggie  saw  how  he  was  moved,  she  went  to 
him  and  put  her  arm  round  his  neck  as  he  sat  by 
the  bed,  and  the  two  children  forgot  everything 
else  in  the  sense  that  they  had  one  father  and 
one  sorrow. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   FAMILY    COUNCIL. 

IT  was  at  eleven  o'clock  the  next  morning  that  the 
aunts  and  uncles  came  to  hold  their  consultation. 
The  fire  was  lighted  in  the  large  parlour,  and  poor 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  .with  a  confused  impression  that  it 
was  a  great  occasion,  like  a  funeral,  unbagged  the 
bell-rope  tassels,  and  unpinned  the  curtains,  adjust- 
ing them  in  proper  folds,  —  looking  round  and  shak- 
ing her  head  sadly  at  the  polished  tops  and  legs 
of  the  tables,  which  sister  Pullet  herself  could  not 
accuse  of  insufficient  brightness. 

Mr.  Deane  was  not  coming,  —  he  was  away  on 
business ;  but  Mrs.  Deane  appeared  punctually  in 
that  handsome  new  gig  with  the  head  to  it,  and  the 
livery-servant  driving  it,  which  had  thrown  so  clear 
a  light  on  several  traits  in  her  character  to  some  of 
her  female  friends  in  St.  Ogg's.  Mr.  Deane  had 
been  advancing  in  the  world  as  rapidly  as  Mr. 
Tulliver  had  been  going  down  in  it ;  and  in  Mrs. 
Deane's  house  the  Dodson  linen  and  plate  were 
beginning  to  hold  quite  a  subordinate  position,  as  a 
mere  supplement  to  the  handsomer  articles  of  the 
same  kind,  purchased  in  recent  years:  a  change 
which  had  caused  an  occasional  coolness  in  the 
sisterly  intercourse  between  her  and  Mrs.  Glegg, 
who  felt  that  Susan  was  getting  "  like  the  rest," 
and  there  would  soon  be  little  of  the  true  Dodson 
spirit  surviving  except  in  herself,  and,  it  might  be 

VOL.    I. 19 


290  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

hoped,  in  those  nephews  who  supported  the  Dodson 
name  on  the  family  land,  far  away  in  the  Wolds. 
People  who  live  at  a  distance  are  naturally  less 
faulty  than  those  immediately  under  our  own  eyes ; 
and  it  seems  superfluous,  when  we  consider  the  re- 
mote geographical  position  of  the  Ethiopians,  and 
how  very  little  the  Greeks  had  to  do  with  them,  to 
inquire  further  why  Homer  calls  them  "  blameless." 

Mrs.  Deane  was  the  first  to  arrive ;  and  when 
she  had  taken  her  seat  in  the  large  parlour,  Mrs. 
Tulliver  came  down  to  her  with  her  comely  face  a 
little  distorted,  nearly  as  it  would  have  been  if  she 
had  been  crying :  she  was  not  a  woman  who  could 
shed  abundant  tears,  except  in  moments  when  the 
prospect  of  losing  her  furniture  became  unusually 
vivid,  but  she  felt  how  unfitting  it  was  to  be  quite 
calm  under  present  circumstances. 

"  Oh,  sister,  what  a  world  this  is  ! "  she  exclaimed 
as  she  entered  ;  "  what  trouble,  oh  dear ! " 

Mrs.  Deane  was  a  thin-lipped  woman,  who  made 
small  well-considered  speeches  on  peculiar  occa- 
sions, repeating  them  afterwards  to  her  husband, 
and  asking  him  if  she  had  not  spoken  very  properly. 

"  Yes,  sister,"  she  said,  delibsrately,  "  this  is  a 
changing  world,  and  we  don't  know  to-day  what 
may  happen  to-morrow.  But  it 's  right  to  be  pre- 
pared for  all  things,  and,  if  trouble 's  sent,  to  remem- 
ber as  it  is  n't  sent  without  a  cause.  I  'm  very 
sorry  for  you  as  a  sister,  and  if  the  doctor  orders 
jelly  for  Mr.  Tulliver,  I  hope  you  '11  let  me  know : 
I  '11  send  it  willingly.  For  it  is  but  right  he  should 
have  proper  attendance  while  he's  ill." 

"Thank  you,  Susan,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  rather 
faintly,  withdrawing  her  fat  hand  from  her  sister's 
thin  one.  "  But  there 's  been  no  talk  o'  jelly  yet." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  291 

Then  after  a  moment's  pause  she  added,  "  There  's  a 
dozen  o'  cut  jelly-glasses  upstairs.  ...  I  shall  never 
put  jelly  into  'em  no  more." 

Her  voice  was  rather  agitated  as  she  uttered  the 
last  words,  but  the  sound  of  wheels  diverted  her 
thoughts.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Glegg  were  come,  and  were 
almost  immediately  followed  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pullet. 

Mrs.  Pullet  entered  crying,  as  a  compendious 
mode,  at  all  times,  of  expressing  what  were  her 
views  of  life  in  general,  and  what,  in  brief,  were  the 
opinions  she  held  concerning  the  particular  case 
before  her. 

Mrs.  Glegg  had  on  her  fuzziest  front,  and  gar- 
ments which  appeared  to  have  had  a  recent  resur- 
rection from  rather  a  creasy  form  of  burial,  —  a 
costume  selected  with  the  high  moral  purpose  of 
instilling  perfect  humility  into  Bessy  and  her 
children. 

"  Mrs.  G.,  won't  you  come  nearer  the  fire  ?  "  said 
her  husband,  unwilling  to  take  the  more  comfortable 
seat  without  offering  it  to  her. 

"You  see  I've  seated  myself  here,  Mr.  Glegg," 
returned  this  superior  woman ;  "  you  can  roast  your- 
self, if  you  like." 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  seating  himself  good- 
humouredly,  "  and  how  's  the  poor  man  upstairs  ? " 

"Dr.  Turnbull  thought  him  a  deal  better  this 
morning,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver ;  "  he  took  more  notice, 
and  spoke  to  me ;  but  he 's  never  known  Tom  yet, 
-looks  at  the  poor  lad  as  if  he  was  a  stranger, 
though  he  said  something  once  about  Tom  and  the 
pony.  The  doctor  says  his  memory 's  gone  a  long 
way  back,  and  he  does  n't  know  Tom  because  he 's 
thinking  of  him  when  he  was  little.  Eh  dear, 
eh  dear!" 


292  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  I  doubt  it 's  the  water  got  on  his  "brain,"  said 
aunt  Pullet,  turning  round  from  adjusting  her  cap 
in  a  melancholy  way  at  the  pier-glass.  "  It 's  much 
if  he  ever  gets  up  again  ;  and  if  he  does,  he  '11  most 
like  be  childish,  as  Mr.  Carr  was,  poor  man  !  They 
fed  him  with  a  spoon  as  if  he'd  been  a  babby  for 
three  year.  He  'd  quite  lost  the  use  of  his  limbs ; 
but  then  he  'd  got  a  Bath  chair,  and  somebody  to 
draw  him ;  and  that 's  what  you  won't  have,  I 
doubt,  Bessy." 

"  Sister  Pullet,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  severely,  "  if  I 
understand  right,  we've  come  together  this  morn- 
ing to  advise  and  consult  about  what 's  to  be  done 
in  this  disgrace  as  has  fallen  upon  the  family,  and 
not  to  talk  o'  people  as  don't  belong  to  us.  Mr. 
Carr  was  none  of  our  blood,  nor  noways  connected 
with  us,  as  I  've  ever  heared." 

"Sister  Glegg,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  in  a  pleading 
tone,  drawing  on  her  gloves  again,  and  stroking  the 
fingers  in  an  agitated  manner,  "  if  you  've  got  any- 
thing disrespectful  to  say  o'  Mr.  Carr,  I  do  beg  of 
you  as  you  won't  say  it  to  me.  /  know  what  he 
was,"  she  added,  with  a  sigh ;  "  his  breath  was  short 
to  that  degree  as  you  could  hear  him  two  rooms 
off." 

"  Sophy ! "  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  with  indignant  dis- 
gust, "  you  do  talk  o'  people's  complaints  till  it 's 
quite  undecent.  But  I  say  again,  as  I  said  before, 
I  did  n't  come  away  from  home  to  talk  about  ac- 
quaintance, whether  they'd  short  breath  or  long. 
If  we  are  n't  come  together  for  one  to  hear  what  the 
other  'ull  do  to  save  a  sister  and  her  children  from 
the  parish,  /  shall  go  back.  One  can't  act  without 
the  other,  I  suppo.se :  it  is  n't  to  be  expected  as  / 
should  do  everything." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  293 

"  Well,  Jane,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet,  "  I  don't  see  as 
you  Ve  been  so  very  forrard  at  doing.  So  far  as  I 
know,  this  is  the  first  time  as  here  you  've  been, 
since  it's  been  known  as  the  bailiff's  in  the  house ; 
and  I  was  here  yesterday,  and  looked  at  all  Bessy's 
linen  and  things,  and  I  told  her  I  'd  buy  in  the 
spotted  table-cloths.  I  could  n't  speak  fairer ;  for 
as  for  the  teapot  as  she  does  n't  want  to  go  out  o' 
tha  family,  it  stands  to  sense  I  can't  do  with  two 
silver  teapots,  not  if  it  had  n't  a  straight  spout  — 
but  the  spotted  damask  I  was  allays  fond  on." 

"  I  wish  it  could  be  managed  so  as  my  teapot  and 
chany  and  the  best  castors  needn't  be  put  up  for 
sale/'  said  poor  Mrs.  Tulliver,  beseechingly,  "  and 
the  sugar-tongs,  the  first  things  ever  I  bought." 

"  But  that  can't  be  helped,  you  know,"  said  Mr. 
Glegg.  "  If  one  o'  the  family  chooses  to  buy  'em  in, 
they  can,  but  one  thing  must  be  bid  for  as  well  as 
another." 

"  And  it  is  n't  to  be  looked  for,"  said  uncle  Pullet, 
with  unwonted  independence  of  idea,  "  as  your  own 
family  should  pay  more  for  things  nor  they  '11  fetch. 
They  may  go  for  an  old  song  by  auction." 

"  Oh  dear,  oh  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  to  think 
o'  my  chany  being  sold  i'  that  way  —  and  I  bought 
it  when  I  was  married,  just  as  you  did  yours,  Jane 
and  Sophy ;  and  I  know  you  did  n't  like  mine,  be- 
cause o'  the  sprig,  but  I  was  fond  of  it ;  and  there 's 
never  been  a  bit  broke,  for  I  've  washed  it  myself,  — 
and  there 's  the  tulips  on  the  cups,  and  the  roses,  as 
anybody  might  go  and  look  at  'em  for  pleasure. 
You  would  n't  like  your  chany  to  go  for  an  old  song 
and  be  broke  to  pieces,  though  yours  has  got  no 
colour  in  it,  Jane,  —  it 's  all  white  and  fluted,  and 
did  n't  cost  so  much  as  mine.  And  there 's  the 


294  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

castors  —  sister  Deane,  I  can't  think  but  you  'd  like 
to  have  the  castors,  for  I  Ve  heard  you  say  they  're 
pretty." 

"Well,  I  've  no  objection  to  buy  some  of  the  best 
things,"  said  Mrs.  Deane,  rather  loftily  ;  "  we  can  do 
with  extra  things  in  our  house." 

"  Best  things  ! "  exclaimed  Mrs.  G-legg,  with  sever- 
ity, which  had  gathered  intensity  from  her  long 
silence.  "  It  drives  me  past  patience  to  hear  you 
all  talking  o'  best  things,  and  buying  in  this,  that, 
and  the  other,  such  as  silver  and  chany.  You  must 
bring  your  mind  to  your  circumstances,  Bessy,  and 
not  be  thinking  o'  silver  and  chany ;  but  whether 
you  shall  get  so  much  as  a  flock-bed  to  lie  on,  and 
a  blanket  to  cover  you,  and  a  stool  to  sit  on.  You 
must  remember,  if  you  get  'em,  it  '11  be  because  your 
friends  have  bought  'em  for  you,  for  you  're  depen- 
dent upon  them  for  everything ;  for  your  husband  lies 
there  helpless,  and  has  n't  got  a  penny  i'  the  world 
to  call  his  own.  And  it 's  for  your  own  good  I  say 
this,  for  it 's  right  you  should  feel  what  your  state 
is,  and  what  disgrace  your  husband  's  brought  on 
your  own  family,  as  you  've  got  to  look  to  for 
everything  —  and  be  humble  in  your  mind." 

Mrs.  Glegg  paused,  for  speaking  with  much  energy 
for  the  good  of  others  is  naturally  exhausting.  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  always  borne  down  by  the  family  pre- 
dominance of  sister  Jane,  who  had  made  her  wear 
the  yoke  of  a  younger  sister  in  very  tender  years, 
said  pleadingly,  — 

"  I  'm  sure,  sister,  I  Ve  never  asked  anybody  to  do 
anything,  only  buy  things  as  it  'ud  be  a  pleasure  to 
'em  to  have,  so  as  they  might  n't  go  and  be  spoiled  i' 
strange  houses.  I  never  asked  anybody  to  buy  the 
things  in  for  me  and  my  children ;  though  there  'a 


THE  DOWNFALL.  295 

the  linen  I  spun,  and  I  thought  when  Tom  was 
born  —  I  thought  one  o'-  the  first  things  when  he 
was  lying  i'  the  cradle,  as  all  the  things  I'd  bought 
wi'  my  own  money,  and  been  so  careful  of,  'ud  go  to 
him.  But  I  've  said  nothing  as  I  wanted  my  sisters 
to  pay  their  money  for  me.  What  my  husband  has 
done  for  his  sister  's  unknown,  and  we  should  ha' 
been  better  off  this  day  if  it  had  n't  been  as  he 's 
lent  money  and  never  asked  for  it  again." 

"  Come,  come,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  kindly,  "  don't  let 
us  make  things  too  dark.  What  's  done  can't  be 
undone.  We  shall  make  a  shift  among  us  to  buy 
what 's  sufficient  for  you  ;  though,  as  Mrs.  G.  says, 
they  must  be  useful,  plain  things.  We  must  n't  le 
thinking  o'  what 's  unnecessary.  A  table,  and  a 
chair  or  two,  and  kitchen  things,  and  a  good  bed, 
and  such-like.  Why,  I  've  seen  the  day  when  I 
should  n't  ha'  known  myself  if  I  'd  lain  on  sacking 
i'stead  o'  the  floor.  We  get  a  deal  o'  useless  things 
about  us,  only  because  we've  got  the  money  to 
spend." 

"Mr.  Glegg,"  said  Mrs.  G.,  "if  you'll  be  kind 
enough  to  let  me  speak,  i'stead  o'  taking  the  words 
out  o'  my  mouth  —  I  was  going  to  say,  Bessy,  as 
it 's  fine  talking  for  you  to  say  as  you  Ve  never  asked 
us  to  buy  anything  for  you ;  let  me  tell  you,  you 
ought  to  have  asked  us.  Pray,  how  are  you  to  be 
purvided  for,  if  your  own  family  don't  help  you? 
You  must  go  to  the  parish,  if  they  did  n't.  And  you 
ought  to  know  that,  and  keep  it  in  mind,  and  ask  us 
humble  to  do  what  we  can  for  you,  i'stead  o'  saying, 
and  making  a  boast,  as  you  've  never  asked  us  for 
anything." 

"  You  talked  o'  the  Mosses,  and  what  Mr.  Tul- 
liver  's  done  for  'em,"  said  uncle  Pullet,  who  became 


296  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

unusually  suggestive  where  advances  of  money  were 
concerned.  "  Have  n't  they  been  anear  you  ?  They 
ought  to  do  something,  as  well  as  other  folks ;  and 
;f  he  's  lent,  'ern  money,  they  ought  to  be  made  to 
pay  it  back." 

"  Yes,  to  be  sure,"  said  Mrs.  Deane ;  "  I  've  been 
thinking  so.  How  is  it  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Moss  are  n't 
here  to  meet  us  ?  It  is  but  right  they  should  do 
their  share." 

"  Oh  dear ! "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "  I  never  sent  'ein 
word  about  Mr.  Tulliver,  and  they  live  so  back'ard 
among  the  lanes  at  Basset,  they  niver  hear  anything 
only  when  Mr.  Moss  comes  to  market.  But  I  niver 
gave  'em  a  thought.  I  wonder  Maggie  did  n't, 
though,  for  she  was  allays  so  fond  of  her  aunt 
Moss." 

"  Why  don't  your  children  come  in,  Bessy  ? "  said 
Mrs.  Pullet,  at  the  mention  of  Maggie.  "  They  should 
hear  what  their  aunts  and  uncles  have  got  to  say ; 
and  Maggie  —  when  it 's  me  as  have  paid  for  half 
her  schooling,  she  ought  to  think  more  of  her  aunt 
Pullet  than  of  aunt  Mosses.  I  may  go  off  sudden 
when  I  get  home  to-day,  —  there  's  no  telling." 

"  If  I  'd  had  my  way,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  "  the 
children  'ud  ha'  been  in  the  room  from  the  first. 
It-  's  time  they  knew  who  they  've  to  look  to,  and 
it 's  right  as  somebody  should  talk  to  'em,  and  let 
'em  know  their  condition  i'  life,  and  what  they  're 
come  down  to,  and  make  'em  feel  as  they  Ve  got  to 
suffer  for  their  father's  faults." 

"  Well,  I  '11  go  and  fetch  'em,  sister,"  said  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  resignedly.  She  was  quite  crushed  now, 
and  thought  of  the  treasures  in  the  store-room  with 
no  other  feeling  than  blank  despair. 

She  went  upstairs  to  fetch  Tom  and  Maggie,  who 


THE  DOWNFALL.  297 

were  both  in  their  father's  room,  and  was  on  her 
way  down  again,  when  the  sight  of  the  store-room 
door  suggested  a  new  thought  to  her.  She  went 
towards  it,  and  left  the  children  to  go  down  by 
themselves. 

The  aunts  and  uncles  appeared  to  have  heen  in 
warm  discussion  when  the  brother  and  sister  entered, 
—  both  with  shrinking  reluctance ;  for  though  Tom, 
with  a  practical  sagacity  which  had  been  roused  into 
activity  by  the  strong  stimulus  of  the  new  emotions 
he  had  undergone  since  yesterday,  had  been  turning 
over  in  his  mind  a  plan  which  he  meant  to  propose 
to  one  of  his  aunts  or  uncles,  he  felt  by  no  means 
amicably  towards  them,  and  dreaded  meeting  them 
all  at  once  as  he  would  have  dreaded  a  large  dose 
of  concentrated  physic,  which  was  but  just  endur- 
able in  small  draughts.  As  for  Maggie,  she  was 
peculiarly  depressed  this  morning:  she  had  been 
called  up,  after  brief  rest,  at  three  o'clock,  and  had 
that  strange  dreamy  weariness  which  comes  from 
watching  in  a  sick-room  through  the  chill  hours 
of  early  twilight  and  bieaking  day,  —  in  which 
the  outside  daylight  life  seems  to  have  no  impor- 
tance, and  to  be  a  mere  margin  to  the  hours  in  the 
darkened  chamber.  Their  entrance  interrupted 
the  conversation.  The  shaking  of  hands  was  a 
melancholy  and  silent  ceremony,  till  uncle  Pullet 
observed,  as  Tom  approached  him, — 

"  Well,  young  sir,  we  've  been  talking  as  we  should 
want  your  pen  and  ink ;  you  can  write  rarely  now, 
after  all  your  schooling,  I  should  think." 

"  Ay,  ay,"  said  uncle  Glegg,  with  admonition  which 
he  meant  to  be  kind,  "  we  must  look  to  see  the  goud 
of  all  this  schooling,  as  your  father  8s  sunk  so  much 
money  in  now  — 


298  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

'When  land  is  gone  and  money's  spent, 
Then  learning  is  most  excellent.' 

Now  's  the  time,  Tom,  to  let  us  see  the  good  o'  yout 
learning.  Let  us  see  whether  you  can  do  better 
than  I  can,  as  haVe  made  my  fortin  without  it.  But 
I  began  wi'  doing  with  little,  you  see :  I  could  live 
on  a  basin  o'  porridge  and  a  crust  o'  bread-and-cheese. 
But  I  doubt  high  living  and  high  learning  'nil  make 
it  harder  for  you,  young  man,  nor  it  was  for  me." 

"  But  he  must  do  it,"  interposed  aunt  Glegg,  ener- 
getically, "  whether  it 's  hard  or  no.  He  has  n't  got 
to  consider  what's  hard;  he  must  consider  as  he 
is  n't  to  trusten  to  his  friends  to  keep  him  in  idle- 
ness and  luxury :  he 's  got  to  bear  the  fruits  of  his 
father's  misconduct,  and  bring  his  mind  to  fare  hard 
and  to  work  hard.  And  he  must  be  humble  and 
grateful  to  his  aunts  and  uncles  for  what  they  're 
doing  for  his  mother  and  father,  as  must  be  turned 
out  into  the  streets  and  go  to  the  workhouse  if  they 
did  n't  help  'em.  And  his  sister,  too,"  continued 
Mrs.  Glegg,  looking  severely  at  Maggie,  who  had 
sat  down  on  the  sofa  by  her  aunt  Deane,  drawn  to 
her  by  the  sense  that  she  was  Lucy's  mother,  "  she 
must  make  up  her  mind  to  be  humble  and  work ; 
for  there  '11  be  no  servants  to  wait  on  her  any  more 
—  she  must  remember  that.  She  must  do  the  work 
o'  the  house,  and  she  must  respect  and  love  her 
aunts  as  have  done  so  much  for  her,  and  saved  their 
money  to  leave  to  their  nepheys  and  nieces." 

Tom  was  still  standing  before  the  table  in  the 
centre  of  the  group.  There  was  a  heightened  colour 
in  his  face,  and  he  was  very  far  from  looking 
humbled,  but  he  was  preparing  to  say,  in  a  respect- 
ful tone,  something  he  had  previously  meditated, 
when  the  door  opened  and  his  mother  re-entered. 


THE  DOWNFALL.  299 

Poor  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  in  her  hands  a  small  tray, 
on  which  she  had  placed  her  silver  teapot,  a  speci- 
men teacup  and  saucer,  the  castors,  and  sugar-tongs. 

"  See  here,  sister,"  she  said,  looking  at  Mrs.  Deane, 
as  she  set  the  tray  on  the  table,  "  I  thought,  perhaps, 
if  you  looked  at  the  teapot  again,  —  it 's  a  good  while 
since  you  saw  it,  —  you  might  like  the  pattern 
better :  it  makes  beautiful  tea,  and  there 's  a  stand 
and  everything :  you  might  use  it  for  every  day,  or 
else  lay  it  by  for  Lucy  when  she  goes  to  housekeep- 
ing. I  should  be  so  loath  for  'em  to  buy  it  at  the 
Golden  Lion,"  said  the  poor  woman,  her  heart  swell- 
ing, and  the  tears  coming,  "  my  teapot  as  I  bought 
when  I  was  married,  and  to  think  of  its  being 
scratched,  and  set  before  the  travellers  and  folks, 
and  my  letters  on  it  —  see  here,  E.  D.  —  and  every- 
body to  see  'em." 

"  Ah,  dear,  dear !  "  said  aunt  Pullet,  shaking  her 
head  with  deep  sadness,  "  it 's  very  bad,  —  to  think 
o'  the  family  initials  going  about  everywhere,  —  it 
niver  was  so  before  :  you  're  a  very  unlucky  sister, 
Bessy.  But  what's  the  use  o'  buying  the  teapot, 
when  there  's  the  linen  and  spoons  and  everything 
to  go,  and  some  of  'em  with  your  full  name,  — 
and  when  it 's  got  that  straight  spout  too  ? " 

"As  to  disgrace  o'  the  family,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg, 
"  that  can't  be  helped  wi'  buying  teapots.  The  dis- 
grace is,  for  one  o'  the  family  to  ha'  married  a  man 
as  has  brought  her  to  beggary.  The  disgrace  is,  as 
they  're  to  be  sold  up.  We  can't  hinder  the  country 
from  knowing  that." 

Maggie  had  started  up  from  the  sofa  at  the  allu- 
sion to  her  father,  but  Tom  saw  her  action  and 
flushed  face  in  time  to  prevent  her  from  speaking. 
"  Be  quiet,  Maggie,"  he  said,  authoritatively,  push- 


300  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

ing  her  aside.  It  was  a  remarkable  manifestation 
of  self-command  and  practical  judgment  in  a  lad 
of  fifteen,  that  when  his  aunt  Glegg  ceased,  he 
began  to  speak  in  a  quiet  and  respectful  manner, 
though  with  a  good  deal  of  trembling  in  his  voice ; 
for  his  mother's  words  had  cut  him  to  the  quick. 

"Then,  aunt,"  he  said,  looking  straight  at  Mrs. 
Glegg,  "if  you  think  it's  a  disgrace  to  the  family 
that  we  should  be  sold  up,  would  n't  it  be  better  to 
prevent  it  altogether  ?  And  if  you  and  my  aunt 
Pullet,"  he  continued,  looking  at  the  latter,  "  think 
of  leaving  any  money  to  me  and  Maggie,  would  n't 
it  be  better  to  give  it  now,  and  pay  the  debt  we  're 
going  to  be  sold  up  for,  and  save  my  mother  from 
parting  with  her  furniture  ? " 

There  was  silence  for  a  few  moments,  for  every 
one,  including  Maggie,  was  astonished  at  Tom's 
sudden  manliness  of  tone.  Uncle  Glegg  was  the 
first  to  speak. 

"Ay,  ay,  young  man,  —  come  now!  You  show 
some  notion  o'  things.  But  there  's  the  interest, 
you  must  remember ;  your  aunts  get  five  per  cent 
on  their  money,  and  they  'd  lose  that  if  they  ad- 
vanced it,  —  you  haven't  thought  o'  that." 

"I  could  work  and  pay  that  every  year,"  said 
Tom,  promptly.  "I'd  do  anything  to  save  my 
mother  from  parting  with  her  things." 

"  Well  done  ! "  said  uncle  Glegg,  admiringly.  He 
had  been  drawing  Tom  out,  rather  than  reflecting 
on  the  practicability  of  his  proposal.  But  he  had 
produced  the  unfortunate  result  of  irritating  his 
wife. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Glegg ! "  said  that  lady,  with  angry 
sarcasm.  "It's  pleasant  work  for  you  to  be  giving 
my  money  away,  as  you  Ve  pretended  to  leave  at 


THE  DOWNFALL.  301 

my  own  disposal.  And  my  money,  as  was  my  own 
father's  gift,  and  not  yours,  Mr.  Glegg ;  and  I  've 
saved  it,  and  added  to  it  myself,  and  had  more  to 
put  out  almost  every  year,  and  it 's  to  go  and  be 
sunk  in  other  folks'  furniture,  and  encourage  'em 
in  luxury  and  extravagance  as  they  Ve  no  means  of 
supporting ;  and  I  'm  to  alter  my  will,  or  have  a 
codicil  made,  and  leave  two  or  three  hundred  less 
behind  me  when  I  die,  —  me  as  have  allays  done 
right  and  been  careful,  and  the  eldest  o'  the  family ; 
and  my  money  's  to  go  and  be  squandered  on  them 
as  have  had  the  same  chance  as  me,  only  they  've 
been  wicked  and  wasteful.  Sister  Pullet,  you  may 
do  as  you  like,  and  you  may  let  your  husband  rob 
you  back  again  o'  the  money  he's  given  you,  but 
that  is  n't  my  sperrit." 

"  La,  Jane,  how  fiery  you  are  ! "  said  Mrs.  Pullet. 
"  I  'm  sure  you  11  have  the  blood  in  your  head,  and 
have  to  be  cupped.  I'm  sorry  for  Bessy  and  her 
children,  —  I  'm  sure  I  think  of  'em  o'  nights  dread- 
ful, for  I  sleep  very  bad  wi'  this  new  medicine ;  but 
it 's  no  use  for  me  to  think  o'  doing  anything,  if  you 
won't  meet  me  half-way." 

"Why,  there's  this  to  be  considered,"  said  Mr. 
Glegg.  "  It 's  no  use  to  pay  off  this  debt  and  save 
the  furniture,  when  there  's  all  the  law  debts  be- 
hind, as  sud  take  every  shilling,  and  more  than  could 
be  made  out  o'  land  and  stock,  for  I  've  made  that 
out  from  Lawyer  Gore.  We  'd  need  save  our  money 
to  keep  the  poor  man  with,  instead  o'  spending  it  on 
furniture  as  he  can  neither  eat  nor  drink.  You  will 
be  so  hasty,  Jane,  as  if  I  didn't  know  what  was 
reasonable." 

"  Then  speak  accordingly,  Mr.  Glegg  ! "  said  his 
wife,  with  slow,  loud  emphasis,  bending  her  head 
towards  him  significantly. 


302  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Tom's  countenance  had  fallen  during  this  conver- 
sation, and  his  lip  quivered  ;  but  he  was  determined 
not  to  give  way.  He  would  behave  like  a  man. 
Maggie,  on  the  contrary,  after  her  momentary  de- 
light in  Tom's  speech,  had  relapsed  into  her  state 
of  trembling  indignation.  Her  mother  had  been 
standing  close  by  Tom's  side,  and  had  been  clinging 
to  his  arm  ever  since  he  had  last  spoken :  Maggie 
suddenly  started  up  and  stood  in  front  of  them,  her 
eyes  flashing  like  the  eyes  of  a  young  lioness. 

"  Why  do  you  come,  then,"  she  burst  out,  "  talk- 
ing and  interfering  with  us  and  scolding  us,  if  you 
don't  mean  to  do  anything  to  help  my  poor  mother, — 
your  own  sister,  —  if  you've  no  feeling  for  her  when 
she's  in  trouble,  and  won't  part  with  anything, 
though  you  would  never  miss  it,  to  save  her  from 
pain  ?  Keep  away  from  us,  then,  and  don't  come  to 
find  fault  with  my  father, — he  was  better  than  any 
of  you,  —  he  was  kind,  —  he  would  have  helped  you, 
if  you  had  been  in  trouble.  Tom  and  I  don't  ever 
want  to  have  any  of  your  money,  if  you  won't  help 
my  mother.  We  'd  rather  not  have  it !  we  '11  do 
without  you." 

Maggie,  having  hurled  her  defiance  at  aunts  and 
uncles  in  this  way,  stood  still,  with  her  large  dark 
eyes  glaring  at  them,  as  if  she  were  ready  to  await 
all  consequences. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  was  frightened;  there  was  some- 
thing portentous  in  this  mad  outbreak ;  she  did 
not  see  how  life  could  go  on  after  it.  Tom  was 
vexed ;  it  was  no  use  to  talk  so.  The  aunts  were 
silent  with  surprise  for  some  moments.  At  length, 
in  a  case  of  aberration  such  as  this,  comment  pre- 
sented itself  as  more  expedient  than  any  answer. 

"  You  have  n't  seen  the  end  o1  your  trouble  wi' 


THE  DOWNFALL.  303 

that  child,  Bessy,"  said  Mrs.  Pullet ;  "  she 's  beyond 
everything  for  boldness  and  unthankfulness.  It's 
dreadful.  I  might  ha'  let  alone  paying  for  her 
schooling,  for  she's  worse  nor  ever." 

"It's  no  more  than  what  I've  allays  said,"  fol- 
lowed Mrs.  Glegg.  "  Other  folks  may  be  surprised, 
but  I  'm  not.  I  Ve  said  over  and  over  again,  — 
years  ago  I've  said,  —  'Mark  my  words;  that  child 
'ull  come  to  no  good :  there  is  n't  a  bit  of  our  family 
in  her.'  And  as  for  her  having  so  much  schooling, 
I  never  thought  well  o'  that.  I  'd  my  reasons  when 
I  said  /  would  n't  pay  anything  towards  it." 

"Come,  come,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  "let's  waste  no 
more  time  in  talking,  —  let 's  go  to  business.  Tom, 
now,  get  the  pen  and  ink  —  " 

While  Mr.  Glegg  was  speaking,  a  tall  dark  figure 
was  seen  hurrying  past  the  window. 

"  Why,  there 's  Mrs.  Moss,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver. 
"  The  bad  news  must  ha'  reached  her,  then ; "  and 
she  went  out  to  open  the  door,  Maggie  eagerly 
following  her. 

"That's  fortunate,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg.  "She  can 
agree  to  the  list  o'  things  to  be  bought  in.  It 's  but 
right  she  should  do  her  share  when  it 's  rier  own 
brother." 

Mrs.  Moss  was  in  too  much  agitation  to  resist 
Mrs.  Tulliver's  movement,  as  she  drew  her  into  the 
parlour,  automatically,  without  reflecting  that  it  was 
hardly  kind  to  take  her  among  so  many  persons  in 
the  first  painful  moment  of  arrival.  The  tall,  worn, 
dark-haired  woman  was  a  strong  contrast  to  the 
Dodson  sisters  as  she  entered  in  her  shabby  dress, 
with  her  shawl  and  bonnet  looking  as  if  they  had 
been  hastily  huddled  on,  and  with  that  entire  ab- 
sence of  self-consciousness  which  belongs  to  keenly 


304  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

felt  trouble.  Maggie  was  clinging  to  her  arm  ;  and 
Mrs.  Moss  seemed  to  notice  no  one  else  except  Tom, 
whom  she  went  straight  up  to  and  took  by  the 
hand. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  children,"  she  burst  out,  "  you  Ve 
no  call  to  think  well  o'  me  ;  I  'm  a  poor  aunt  to  you, 
for  I  'm  one  o'  them  as  take  all  and  give  nothing. . 
How  's  my  poor  brother  ? " 

"Mr.  Turnbull  thinks  he'll  get  better,"  said 
Maggie.  "  Sit  down,  aunt  Gritty.  Don't  fret." 

"Oh,  my  sweet  child,  I  feel  torn  i'  two,"  said 
Mrs.  Moss,  allowing  Maggie  to  lead  her  to  the  sofa, 
but  still  not  seeming  to  notice  the  presence  of  the 
rest.  "  We  've  three  hundred  pounds  o'  my  brother's 
money,  and  now  he  wants  it,  and  you  all  want  it, 
poor  things  !  —  and  yet  we  must  be  sold  up  to  pay 
it,  and  there's  my  poor  children — eight  of  'em, 
and  the  little  un  of  all  can't  speak  plain.  And  I 
feel  as  if  I  was  a  robber.  But  I'm  sure  I'd  no 
thought  as  my  brother  — " 

The  poor  woman  was  interrupted  by  a  rising 
sob. 

"  Three  hundred  pounds !  oh  dear,  dear ! "  said 
Mrs.  T\illiver,  who,  when  she  had  said  that  her 
husband  had  done  "  unknown  "  things  for  his  sis- 
ter, had  not  had  any  particular  sum  in  her  mind, 
and  felt  a  wife's  irritation  at  having  been  kept  in 
the  dark. 

"  What  madness,  to  be  sure  ! "  said  Mrs.  Glegg. 
"  A  man  with  a  family !  He  'd  no  right  to  lend 
his  money  i'  that  way;  and  without  security,  I'll 
be  bound,  if  the  truth  was  known." 

Mrs.  Glegg's  voice  had  arrested  Mrs.  Moss's  at- 
tention, and,  looking  up,  she  said,  — 

"  Yes,  there  was  security :  my  husband  gave  a 


THE  DOWNFALL.  305 

note  for  it.  We  're  not  that  sort  o'  people,  neither 
of  us,  as  'ud  rob  my  brother's  children  ;  and  we 
looked  to  paying  back  the  money  when  the  times 
got  a  bit  better." 

"Well,  but  now,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  gently,  "hasn't 
your  husband  no  way  o'  raising  this  money  ?  Be- 
cause it'd  be  a  little  fortin,  like,  for  these  folks, 
if  we  can  do  without  Tulliver's  being  made  a  bank- 
rupt. Your  husband's  got  stock  :  it  is  but  right  he 
should  raise  the  money,  as  it  seems  to  me,  —  not 
but  what  I  'm  sorry  for  you,  Mrs.  Moss." 

"  Oh,  sir,  you  don't  know  what  bad  luck  my  hus- 
band 's  had  with  his  stock.  The  farm 's  suffering 
so  as  never  was  for  want  o'  stock ;  and  we  Ve  sold 
all  the  wheat,  and  we  're  behind  with  our  rent  .  .  . 
not  but  what  we  'd  like  to  do  what 's  right,  and  I  'd 
sit  up  and  work  half  the  night,  if  it  'ud  be  any  good 
.  .  .  but  there's  them  poor  children  .  .  .  four  of 
em  such  little  uns  — 

"Don't  cry  so,  aunt,  —  don't,  fret,"  whispered 
Maggie,  who  had  kept  hold  of  Mrs.  Moss's  hand. 

"  Did  Mr.  Tulliver  let  you  have  the  money  all  at 
once  ? "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  still  lost  in  the  concep- 
tion of  things  which  had  been  "going  on"  without 
her  knowledge. 

"  No ;  at  twice,"  said  Mrs.  Moss,  rubbing  her 
eyes,  and  making  an  effort  to  restrain  her  tears. 
"  The  last  was  after  my  bad  illness,  four  years  ago, 
as  everything  went  wrong,  and  there  was  a  new 
note  made  then.  What  with  illness  and  bad  luck, 
I  Ve  been  nothing  but  cumber  all  my  life." 

"  Yes,  Mrs.  Moss,"  said  Mrs.  Glegg,  with  decision. 
"  Yours  is  a  very  unlucky  family ;  the  more 's  the 
pity  for  my  sister." 

"  I  set  off'  in  the  cart  as  soon  as  ever  I  heard  o' 

VOL.  I.  —  20 


306  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

what  had  happened,"  said  Mrs.  Moss,  looking  at 
Mrs.  Tulliver.  "  I  should  never  ha'  stayed  away 
all  this  while,  if  you  'd  thought  well  to  let  me 
know.  And  it  is  n't  as  I  'm  thinking  all  about  our- 
selves, and  nothing  about  my  brother,  —  only  the 
money  was  so  on  my  mind,  I  couldn't  help  speak- 
ing about  it.  And  my  husband  and  me  desire  to 
do  the  right  thing,  sir,"  she  added,  looking  at  Mr. 
Glegg,  "  and  we  '11  make  shift  and  pay  the  money, 
come  what  will,  if  that 's  all  my  brother 's  got  to 
trust  to.  We've  been  used  to  trouble,  and  don't 
look  for  much  else.  It 's  only  the  thought  o'  my 
poor  children  pulls  me  i'  two." 

"  Why,  there 's  this  to  be  thought  on,  Mrs.  Moss," 
said  Mr.  Glegg,  "  and  it 's  right  to  warn  you ;  — 
if  Tulliver 's  made  a  bankrupt,  and  he's  got  a 
note-of-hand  of  your  husband's  for  three  hundred 
pounds,  you  '11  be  obliged  to  pay  it :  tb'  assignees 
'ull  come  on  you  for  it." 

"  Oh  dear,  oh  dear ! "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  thinking 
of  the  bankruptcy,  and  not  of  Mrs.  Moss's  concern 
in  it.  Poor  Mrs.  Moss  herself  listened  in  trembling 
submission,  while  Maggie  looked  with  bewildered 
distress  at  Tom  to  see  if  he  showed  any  signs  of 
understanding  this  trouble,  and  caring  about  poor 
aunt  Moss.  Tom  was  only  looking  thoughtful, 
with  his  eyes  on  the  table-cloth. 

"  And  if  he  is  n't  made  bankrupt,"  continued  Mr. 
Glegg,  "  as  I  said  before,  three  hundred  pounds  'ud 
be  a  little  fortin  for  him,  poor  man.  We  don't 
know  but  what  he  may  be  partly  helpless,  if  he 
ever  gets  up  again.  I  'm  very  sorry  if  it  goes  hard 
with  you,  Mrs.  Moss,  —  but  my  opinion  is,  looking 
at  it  one  way,  it  '11  be  right  for  you  to  raise  the 
money ;  and  looking  at  it  th'  other  way,  you  '11  be 


THE  DOWNFALL.  307 

obliged  to  pay  it.     You  won't  think  ill  o'  me  for 
speaking  the  truth." 

"  Uncle,"  said  Tom,  looking  up  suddenly  from 
his  meditative  view  of  the  table-cloth.  "I  don't 
think  it  would  be  right  for  my  aunt  Moss  to  pay 
the  money,  if  it  would  be  against  my  father's  will 
for  her  to  pay  it ;  would  it  ?  " 

Mr.  Glegg  looked  surprised  for  a  moment  or  two 
before  he  said,  "  Why,  no,  perhaps  not,  Tom ;  but 
then  he  'd  ha'  destroyed  the  note,  you  know.  We 
must  look  for  the  note.  What  makes  you  think  it 
'ud  be  against  his  will?" 

"  Why,"  said  Tom,  colouring,  but  trying  to  speak 
firmly,  in  spite  of  a  boyish  tremor,  "  I  remember 
quite  well,  before  I  went  to  school  to  Mr.  Stelling, 
my  father  said  to  me  one  night,  when  we  were  sit- 
ting by  the  fire  together,  and  no  one  else  was  in 
the  room  —  " 

Tom  hesitated  a  little,  and  then  went  on. 

"  He  said  something  to  me  about  Maggie,  and  then 
he  said,  '  I  've  always  been  good  to  my  sister, 
though  she  married  against  my  will,  —  and  I've 
lent  Moss  money ;  but  I  shall  never  think  of  dis- 
tressing him  to  pay  it:  I'd  rather  lose  it.  My 
children  must  not  mind  being  the  poorer  for  that.' 
And  now  my  father's  ill,  and  not  able  to  speak 
for  himself,  I  should  n't  like  anything  to  be  done 
contrary  to  what  he  said  to  me." 

"  Well,  but  then,  my  boy,"  said  uncle  Glegg, 
whose  good  feeling  led  him  to  enter  into  Tom's 
wish,  but  who  could  not  at  once  shake  off  his 
habitual  abhorrence  of  such  recklessness  as  destroy- 
ing securities,  or  alienating  anything  important 
enough  to  make  an  appreciable  difference  in  a 
man's  property,  "  we  should  have  to  make  away 


3o8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

wi'  the  note,  you  know,  if  we  're  to  guard  against 
what  may  happen,  supposing  your  father's  made 
bankrupt  —  " 

"  Mr.  Glegg,"  interrupted  his  wife,  severely, "  mind 
what  you  're  saying.  You  're  putting  yourself  very 
forrard  in  other  folks's  business.  If  you  speak 
rash,  don't  say  it  was  my  fault." 

"  That 's  such  a  thing  as  I  never  beared  of  before," 
said  uncle  Pullet,  who  had  been  making  haste  with 
his  lozenge  in  order  to  express  his  amazement; 
"  making  away  with  a  note  !  I  should  think  any- 
body could  set  the  constable  on  you  for  it." 

"Well,  but,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  "if  the  note's 
worth  all  that  money,  why  can't  we  pay  it  away, 
and  save  my  things  from  going  away  ?  We  've  no 
call  to  meddle  with  your  uncle  and  aunt  Moss, 
Tom,  if  you  think  your  father  'ud  be  angry  when 
he  gets  well." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  had  not  studied  the  question  of 
exchange,  and  was  straining  her  mind  after  original 
ideas  on  the  subject. 

"  Pooh,  pooh,  pooh  !  you  women  don't  understand 
these  things,"  said  uncle  Glegg.  "  There 's  no  way 
o'  making  it  safe  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Moss  but  de- 
stroying the  note." 

"  Then  I  hope  you  '11  help  me  to  do  it,  uncle," 
said  Tom,  earnestly.  "  If  my  father  should  n't  get 
well,  I  should  be  very  unhappy  to  think  anything 
had  been  done  against  his  will,  that  I  could  hinder. 
And  I  'm  sure  he  meant  me  to  remember  what  he 
said  that  evening.  I  ought  to  obey  my  father's 
wish  about  his  property." 

Even  Mrs.  Glegg  could  not  withhold  her  approval 
from  Tom's  words :  she  felt  that  the  Dodson  blood 
was  certainly  speaking  in  him,  though,  if  his  father 


THE  DOWNFALL.  309 

had  been  a  Dodson,  there  would  never  have  been 
this  wicked  alienation  of  money.  Maggie  would 
hardly  have  restrained  herself  from  leaping  on 
Tom's  neck,  if  her  aunt  Moss  had  not  prevented 
her  by  herself  rising  and  taking  Tom's  hand,  while 
she  said  with  rather  a  choked  voice, — 

"  You  11  never  be  the  poorer  for  this,  my  dear 
boy,  if  there's  a  God  above;  and  if  the  money's 
wanted  for  your  father,  Moss  and  me  'ull  pay  it, 
the  same  as  if  there  was  ever  such  security.  We  '11 
do  as  we  'd  be  done  by ;  for  if  my  children  have 
got  no  other  luck,  they  Ve  got  an  honest  father  and 
mother." 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  who  had  been  meditating 
after  Tom's  words,  "  we  should  n't  be  doing  any 
wrong  by  the  creditors,  supposing  your  father  was 
bankrupt.  I  've  been  thinking  o'  that,  for  I  've 
been  a  creditor  myself,  and  seen  no  end  o'  cheating. 
If  he  meant  to  give  your  aunt  the  money  before 
ever  he  got  into  this  sad  work  o'  la  wing,  it 's  the 
same  as  if  he  'd  made  away  with  the  note  himself  ; 
for  he  'd  made  up  his  mind  to  be  that  much  poorer. 
But  there 's  a  deal  o'  things  to  be  considered,  young 
man,"  Mr.  Glegg  added,  looking  admonishingly  at 
Tom,  "  when  you  come  to  money  business,  and  you 
may  be  taking  one  man's  dinner  away  to  make 
another  man's  breakfast.  You  don't  understand 
that,  I  doubt?" 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Tom,  decidedly.  "  I  know  if 
I  owe  money  to  one  man,  I  've  no  right  to  give  it 
to  another.  But  if  iny  father  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  give  my  aunt  the  money  before  he  was  in 
debt,  he  had  a  right  to  do  it." 

"  Well  done,  young  man  !  I  did  n't  think  you  'd 
been  so  sharp,"  said  uncle  Glegg,  with  much  candour. 


3io  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  But  perhaps  your  father  did  make  away  with  the 
note.  Let  us  go  and  see  if  we  can  find  it  in  the 
chest." 

"  It 's  in  my  father's  room.     Let  us  go  too,  aunt 
Gritty,"  whispered  Maggie. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

A   VANISHING   GLEAM. 

MR.  TULLIVER,  even  between  the  fits  of  spasmodic 
rigidity  which  had  recurred  at  intervals  ever  since 
he  had  been  found  fallen  from  his  horse,  was  usually 
in  so  apathetic  a  condition  that  the  exits  and  en- 
trances into  his  room  were  not  felt  to  be  of  great 
importance.  He  had  lain  so  still,  with  his  eyes 
closed,  all  this  morning,  that  Maggie  told  her  aunt 
Moss  she  must  not  expect  her  father  to  take  any 
notice  of  them. 

They  entered  very  quietly,  and  Mrs.  Moss  took 
her  seat  near  the  head  of  the  bed,  while  Maggie 
sat  in  her  old  place  on  the  bed,  and  put  her  hand 
on  her  father's  without  causing  any  change  in  his 
face. 

v  Mr.  Glegg  and  Tom  had  also  entered,  treading 
softly,  and  were  busy  selecting  the  key  of  the  old 
oak  chest  from  the  bunch  which  Tom  had  brought 
from  his  father's  bureau.  They  succeeded  in  open- 
ing the  chest  —  which  stood  opposite  the  foot  of 
Mr.  Tulliver's  bed  —  and  propping  the  lid  with  the 
iron  holder,  without  much  noise. 

"  There  's  a  tin  box,"  whispered  Mr.  Glegg  ;  "  he  'd 
most  like  put  a  small  thing  like  a  note  in  there. 
Lift  it  out,  Tom ;  but  I  '11  just  lift  up  these  deeds  - 
they  're  the  deeds  o'  the  house  and  mill,  I  suppose 
—  and  see  what  there  is  under  'em." 

Mr.  .Glegg  had  lifted  out  the  parchments,  and 


312  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

had  fortunately  drawn  back  a  little,  when  the  iron 
holder  gave  way,  and  the  heavy  lid  fell  with  a  loud 
bang  that  resounded  over  the  house. 

Perhaps  there  was  something  in  that  sound  more 
than  the  mere  fact  of  the  strong  vibration  that 
produced  the  instantaneous  effect  on  the  frame  of 
the  prostrate  man,  and  for  the  time  completely 
shook  off  the  obstruction  of  paralysis.  The  chest 
had  belonged  to  his  father  and  his  father's  father, 
and  it  had  always  been  rather  a  solemn  business 
to  visit  it  All  long-known  objects,  even  a  mere 
window-fastening  or  a  particular  door-latch,  have 
sounds  which  are  a  sort  of  recognized  voice  to  us, — 
a  voice  that  will  thrill  and  awaken,  when  it  has 
been  used  to  touch  deep-lying  tibres.  In  the  same 
moment  when  all  the  eyes  in  the  room  were  turned 
upon  him,  he  started  up  and  looked  at  the  chest, 
the  parchments  in  Mr.  Glegg's  hand,  and  Tom 
holding  the  tin  box,  with  a  glance  of  perfect  con- 
sciousness and  recognition. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  those  deeds  ? " 
he  said,  in  his  ordinary  tone  of  sharp  questioning 
whenever  he  was  irritated.  "  Come  here,  Tom. 
What  do  you  do,  going  to  my  chest  ? " 

Tom  obeyed,  with  some  trembling:  it  was  the 
first  time  his  father  had  recognized  him.  But  in- 
stead of  saying  anything  more  to  him,  his  father 
continued  to  look  with  a  growing  distinctness  of 
suspicion  at  Mr.  Glegg  and  the  deeds. 

"  What 's  been  happening,  then  ? "  he  said  sharply. 
"  What  are  you  meddling  with  my  deeds  f or  ?  Is 
Wakem  laying  hold  of  everything  ?  .  .  .  Why  don't 
you  tell  me  what  you  've  been  a-doing  ?  "  he  added 
impatiently,  as  Mr.  Glegg  advanced  to  the  foot  of 
the  bed  before  speaking. 


THE  DOWNFALL.  313 

"  No,  no,  friend  Tulliver,"  said  Mr.  Glegg,  in  a 
soothing  tone.  "  Nobody 's  getting  hold  of  anything 
as  yet.  We  only  came  to  look  and  see  what  was  in 
the  chest.  You  've  been  ill,  you  know,  and  we  Ve 
had  to  look  after  things  a  bit.  But  let 's  hope  you  11 
soon  be  well  enough  to  attend  to  everything  your~ 
self." 

Mr.  Tulliver  looked  round  him  meditatively, — 
at  Tom,  at  Mr.  Glegg,  and  at  Maggie ;  then  suddenly 
appearing  aware  that  some  was  seated  by  his  side 
at  the  head  of  the  bed,  he  turned  sharply  round  and 
saw  his  sister. 

"  Eh,  Gritty  ! "  he  said,  in  the  half-sad,  affection- 
ate tone  in  which  he  had  been  wont  to  speak  to  her. 
"  What !  you  're  there,  are  you  ?  How  could  you 
manage  to  leave  the  children  ? " 

"  Oh,  brother ! "  said  good  Mrs.  Moss,  too  impul- 
sive to  be  prudent,  "  1  'm  thankful  I  'm  come  now 
to  see  you  yourself  again,  —  I  thought  you  'd  never 
know  us  any  more." 

"  What !  have  I  had  a  stroke  ?"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
anxiously,  looking  at  Mr.  Glegg. 

"  A  fall  from  your  horse,  —  shook*  you  a  bit,  — 
that 's  all,  I  think,"  said  Mr.  Glegg.  "  But  you  '11 
soon  get  over  it,  let 's  hope." 

Mr.  Tulliver  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  bed-clothes,  and 
remained  silent  for  two  or  three  minutes.  A  new 
shadow  came  over  his  face.  He  looked  up  at  Maggie 
first,  and  said  in  a  lower  tone,  "  You  got  the  letter, 
then,  my  wench  ? " 

"  Yes,  father,"  she  said,  kissing  him  with  a  full 
heart.  She  felt  as  if  her  father  were  come  back  to 
her  from  the  dead,  and  her  yearning  to  show  him 
how  she  had  always  loved  him  could  be  fulfilled. 

"  Where  's  your  mother  ?"  he  said,  so  preoccupied 


3i4  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

that  he  received  the  kiss  as  passively  as  some  quiet 
animal  might  have  received  it. 

"She's  downstairs  with  my  aunts,  father;  shall 
I  fetch  her  ? " 

"  Ay,  ay :  poor  Bessy  ! "  and  his  eyes  turned 
towards  Tom  as  Maggie  left  the  room. 

"  You  '11  have  to  take  care  of  'em  both  if  I  die, 
you  know,  Tom.  You  '11  be  badly  off,  I  doubt.  But 
you  must  see  and  pay  everybody.  And  mind, — 
there 's  fifty  pound  o'  Luke's  as  I  put  into  the  busi- 
ness, —  he  gave  it  me  a  bit  at  a  time,  and  he 's  got 
nothing  to  show  for  it.  You  must  pay  him  first 
thing." 

Uncle  Glegg  involuntarily  shook  his  head,  and 
looked  more  concerned  than  ever,  but  Tom  said 
firmly,  — 

"  Yes,  father.  And  have  n't  you  a  note  from  my 
uncle  Moss  for  three  hundred  pounds  ?  We  came 
to  look  for  that.  What  do  you  wish  to  be  done 
about  it,  father?" 

"  Ah  !  I  'm  glad  you  thought  o'  that,  my  lad,"  said 
Mr.  Tulliver.  "  I  allays  meant  to  be  easy  about 
that  money,  because  o'  your  aunt.  You  must  n't 
mind  losing  the  money,  if  they  can't  pay  it,  —  and 
it's  like  enough  they  can't.  The  note's  in  that 
box,  mind!  I  allays  meant  to  be  good  to  you, 
Gritty,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  turning  to  his  sister ; 
"  but,  you  know,  you  aggravated  me  when  you  would 
have  Moss." 

At  this  moment  Maggie  re-entered  with  her 
mother,  who  came  in  much  agitated  by  the  news 
that  her  husband  was  quite  himself  again. 

"  Well,  Bessy,"  he  said,  as  she  kissed  him,  "  you 
must  forgive  me  if  you  're  worse  off  than  you  ever 
expected  to  be.  But  it 's  the  fault  o'  the  law,  —  it 's 


THE  DOWNFALL.  315 

none  o'  mine,"  he  added  angrily.  "  It 's  the  fault  o' 
raskills  !  Tom,  —  you  mind  this  :  if  ever  you  've  got 
the  chance,  you  make  Wakem  smart.  If  you  don't, 
you're  a  good-for-nothing  son.  You  might  horse- 
whip him,  —  but  he'd  set  the  law  on  you,  —  the 
law's  made  to  take  care  o'  raskills." 

Mr.  Tulliver  was  getting  excited,  and  an  alarming 
flush  was  on  his  face.  Mr.  Glegg  wanted  to  say 
something  soothing,  but  he  was  prevented  by  Mr. 
Tulliver's  speaking  again  to  his  wife.  "  They  '11 
make  a  shift  to  pay  everything,  Bessy,"  he  said, 
"and  yet  leave,  you  your  furniture;  and  your  sis- 
ters '11  do  something  for  you  .  .  .  and  Tom  '11  grow 
up  ...  though  what  he  's  to  be  I  don't  know  .  .  . 
I  Ve  done  what  I  could  .  .  .  I  Ve  given  him  an  eddi- 
cation  .  .  .  and  there  's  the  little  wench,  she  '11  get 
married  .  .  .  but  it 's  a  poor  tale  — " 

The  sanative  effect  of  the  strong  vibration  was 
exhausted,  and  with  the  last  words  the  poor  man 
fell  again,  rigid  and  insensible.  Though  this  was 
only  a  recurrence  of  what  had  happened  before,  it 
struck  all  present  as  if  it  had  been  death,  not  only 
from  its  contrast  with  the  completeness  of  the  re- 
vival, but  because  his  words  had  all  had  reference 
to  the  possibility  that  his  death  was  near.  But  with 
poor  Tulliver  death  was  not  to  be  a  leap :  it  was  to 
be  a  long  descent  under  thickening  shadows. 

Mr.  Turnbull  was  sent  for ;  but  when  he  heard 
what  had  passed,  he  said  this  complete  restoration, 
though  only  temporary,  was  a  hopeful  sign,  proving 
that  there  was  no  permanent  lesion  to  prevent  ulti- 
mate recovery. 

Among  the  threads  of  the  past  which  the  stricken 
man  had  gathered  up,  he  had  omitted  the  bill  of 
sale ;  the  flash  of  memory  had  only  lit  up  promi- 


316  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

nent  ideas,   and   he  sank  into   forgetfulness  again 
with  half  his  humiliation  unlearned. 

But  Tom  was  clear  upon  two  points,  —  that  his 
uncle  Moss's  note  must  be  destroyed,  and  that 
Luke's  money  must  be  paid,  if  in  no,  other  way,  out 
of  his  own  and  Maggie's  money  now  in  the  savings- 
bank.  There  were  subjects,  you  perceive,  on  which 
Tom  was  much  quicker  than  on  the  niceties  of 
classical  construction,  or  the  relations  of  a  mathe- 
matical demonstration. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

TOM  APPLIES   HIS   KNIFE   TO   THE   OYSTER. 

THE  next  day,  at  ten  o'clock,  Tom  was  on  his  way 
to  St.  Ogg's,  to  see  his  uncle  Deane,  who  was  to 
come  home  last  night,  his  aunt  had  said  ;  and  Tom 
had  made  up  his  mind  that  his  uncle  Deane  was  the 
right  person  to  ask  for  advice  about  getting  some 
employment.  He  was  in  a  great  way  of  business ; 
he  had  not  the  narrow  notions  of  uncle  Glegg ;  and 
he  had  risen  in  the  world  on  a  scale  of  advancement 
which  accorded  with  Tom's  ambition. 

It  was  a  dark,  chill,  misty  morning,  likely  to  end 
in  rain,  —  one  of  those  mornings  "when  even  happy 
people  take  refuge  in  their  hopes.  And  Tom  was 
very  unhappy  :  he  felt  the  humiliation  as  well  as  the 
prospective  hardships  of  his  lot  with  all  the  keen- 
ness of  a  proud  nature ;  and  with  all  his  resolute 
dutif  uluess  towards  his  father  there  mingled  an  irre- 
pressible indignation  against  him  which  gave  mis- 
fortune the  less  endurable  aspect  of  a  wrong.  Since 
these  were  the  consequences  of  going  to  law,  his 
father  was  really  blamable,  as  his  aunts  and  uncles 
had  always  said  he  was ;  and  it  was  a  significant 
indication  of  Tom's  character,  that  though  he  thought 
his  aunts  ought  to  do  something  more  for  his 
mother,  he  felt  nothing  like  Maggie's  violent  resent- 
ment against  them  for  showing  no  eager  tenderness 
and  generosity.  There  were  no  impulses  in  Tom 
that  led  him  to  expect  what  did  not  present  itself 


3i8  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

to  him  as  a  right  to  be  demanded.  Why  should 
people  give  away  their  money  plentifully  to  those 
who  had  not  taken  care  of  their  own  money  ?  Tom 
saw  some  justice  in  severity;  and  all  the  more, 
because  he  had  confidence  in  himself  that  he  should 
never  deserve  that  just  severity.  It  was  very  hard 
upon  him  that  he  should  be  put  at  this  disadvantage 
in  life  by  his  father's  want  of  prudence ;  but  he  was 
not  going  to  complain  and  to  find  fault  with  people 
because  they  did  not  make  everything  easy  for  him. 
He  would  ask  no  one  to  help  him,  more  than  to  give 
him  work  and  pay  him  for  it.  Poor  Tom  was  not 
without  his  hopes  to  take  refuge  in  under  the  chill 
damp  imprisonment  of  the  December  fog  which 
seemed  only  like  a  part  of  his  home  troubles.  At 
sixteen,  the  mind«that  has  the  strongest  affinity  for 
fact  cannot  escape  illusion  and  self-flattery ;  and 
Tom,  in  sketching  his  future,  had  no  other  guide  in 
arranging  his  facts  than  the  suggestions  of  his  own 
brave  self-reliance.  Both  Mr.  Gleggand  Mr.  Deane, 
he  knew,  had  been  very  poor  once ;  he  did  not  want 
to  save  money  slowly  and  retire  on  a  moderate  for- 
tune like  his  uncle  Glegg,  but  he  would  be  like  his 
uncle  Deane,  — get  a  situation  in  some  great  house 
of  business  and  rise  fast.  He  had  scarcely  seen 
anything  of  his  uncle  Deane  for  the  last  three  years, 
—  the  two  families  had  been  getting  wider  apart ; 
but  for  this  very  reason  Tom  was  the  more  hopeful 
about  applying  to  him.  His  uncle  Glegg,  he  felt 
sure,  would  never  encourage  any  spirited  project, 
but  he  had  a  vague  imposing  idea  of  the  resources 
at  his  uncle  Deane's  command.  He  had  heard  his 
father  say,  long  ago,  how  Deane  had  made  bimself 
so  valuable  to  Guest  &  Co.  that  they  were  glad 
enough  to  oiler  him  a  share  in  the  business ;  that 


THE  DOWNFALL.  319 

was  what  Tom  resolved  he  would  do.  It  was  intoler- 
able to  think  of  being  poor  and  looked  down  upon 
all  one's  life.  He  would  provide  for  his  mother  and 
sister,  and  make  every  one  say  that  he  was  a  man  of 
high  character.  He  leaped  over  the  years  in  this 
way,  and  in  the  haste  of  strong  purpose  and  strong 
desire,  did  not  see  how  they  would  be  made  up  of 
slow  days,  hours,  and  minutes. 

By  the  time  he  had  crossed  the  stone  bridge  over 
the  Floss  and  was  entering  St.  Ogg's,  he  was  think- 
ing that  he  would  buy  his  father's  mill  and  land 
again  when  he  was  rich  enough,  and  improve  the 
house  and  live  there :  he  should  prefer  it  to  any 
smarter,  newer  place,  and  he  could  keep  as  many 
horses  and  dogs  as  he  liked. 

Walking  along  the  street  with  a  firm,  rapid  step, 
at  this  point  in  his  reverie  he  was  startled  by  some 
one  who  had  crossed  without  his  notice,  and  who 
said  to  him  in  a  rough,  familiar  voice,  — 

"  Why,  Master  Tom,  how 's  your  father  this 
morning  ?  "  It  was  a  publican  of  St.  Ogg's,  —  one 
of  his  father's  customers. 

Tom  disliked  being  spoken  to  just  then ;  but  he 
said  civilly,  "  He 's  still  very  ill,  thank  you." 

"  Ay,  it 's  been  a  sore  chance  for  you,  young  man, 
has  n't  it  ?  —  this  lawsuit  turning  out  against  him," 
said  the  publican,  with  a  confused  beery  idea  of 
being  good-natured. 

Tom  reddened  and  passed  on:  he  would  have 
felt  it  like  the  handling  of  a  bruise,  even  if  there 
had  been  the  most  polite  and  delicate  reference  to 
his  position. 

"  That 's  Tulliver's  son,"  said  the  publican  to  a 
grocer  standing  on  the  adjacent  door-step. 

"  Ah  ! "  said  the  grocer,  "  I  thought  I  knew  his 


320  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

features.  He  takes  after  his  mother's  family;  she 
was  a  Dodson.  He 's  a  fine,  straight  youth :  what 's 
he  been  brought  up  to  ? " 

"  Oh !  to  turn  up  his  nose  at  his  father's  cus- 
tomers, and  be  a  fine  gentleman,  —  not  much  else, 
I  think." 

Tom,  roused  from  his  dream  of  the  future  to  a 
thorough  consciousness  of  the  present,  made  all  the 
greater  haste  to  reach  the  warehouse  offices  of 
Guest  &  Co.,  where  he  expected  to  find  his  uncle 
Deane.  But  this  was  Mr.  Deane's  morning  at  the 
bank,  a  clerk  told  him,  with  some  contempt  for  his 
ignorance :  Mr.  Deane  was  not  to  be  found  in  River 
Street  on  a  Thursday  morning. 

At  the  bank  Tom  was  admitted  into  the  private 
room  where  his  uncle  was,  immediately  after 
sending  in  his  name.  Mr.  Deane  was  auditing 
accounts ;  but  he  looked  up  as  Tom  entered,  and, 
putting  out  his  hand,  said,  "Well,  Tom,  nothing 
fresh  the  matter  at  home,  I  hope  ?  How 's  your 
father  ? " 

"Much  the  same,  thank  you,  uncle,"  said  Tom, 
feeling  nervous.  "  But  I  want  to  speak  to  you, 
please,  when  you  're  at  liberty." 

"Sit  down,  sit  down,"  said  Mr.  Deane,  relapsing 
into  his  accounts,  in  which  he  and  the  managing- 
clerk  remained  so  absorbed  for  the  next  half-hour 
that  Tom  began  to  wonder  whether  he  should  have 
to  sit  in  this  way  till  the  bank  closed,  —  there 
seemed  so  little  tendency  towards  a  conclusion  in 
the  quiet  monotonous  procedure  of  these  sleek, 
prosperous  men  of  business.  Would  his  uncle  give 
him  a  place  in  the  bank?  It  would  be  very  dull, 
prosy  work,  he  thought,  writing  there  forever  to 
the  loud  ticking  of  a  timepiece.  He  preferred 


THE  DOWNFALL.  321 

some  other  way  of  getting  rich.  But  at  last  there 
was  a  change :  his  uncle  took  a  pen  and  wrote 
something  with  a  flourish  at  the  end. 

"  You  '11  just  step  up  to  Torry's  now,  Mr.  Spence, 
will  you  ?  "  said  Mr.  Deane ;  and  the  clock  suddenly 
became  less  loud  and  deliberate  in  Tom's  ears. 

"  Well,  Tom,"  said  Mr.  Deane  when  they  were 
alone,  turning  his  substantial  person  a  little  in  his 
chair,  and  taking  out  his  snuff-box,  "  what 's  the 
business,  my  boy,  —  what 's  the  business  ?  "  Mr. 
Deane,  who  had  heard  from  his  wife  what  had 
passed  the  day  before,  thought  Tom  was  come  to 
appeal  to  him  for  some  means  of  averting  the  sale. 

"I  hope  you'll  excuse  me  for  troubling  you, 
uncle,"  said  Tom,  colouring,  but  speaking  in  a  tone 
which,  though  tremulous,  had  a  certain  proud  in- 
dependence in  it ;  "  but  I  thought  you  were  the 
best  person  to  advise  me  what  to  do." 

"Ah!"  said  Mr.  Deane,  reserving  his  pinch  of 
snuff,  and  looking  at  Tom  with  new  attention,  "  let 
us  hear." 

"  I  want  to  get  a  situation,  uncle,  so  that  I  may 
earn  some  money,"  said  Tom,  who  never  fell  into 
circumlocution. 

"  A  situation  ? "  said  Mr.  Deane,  and  then  took 
his  pinch  of  snuff  with  elaborate  justice  to  each 
nostril.  Tom  thought  snuff-taking  a  most  provok- 
ing habit. 

"  Why,  let  me  see,  how  old  are  you  ?  "  said  Mr. 
Deane,  as  he  threw  himself  backward  again. 

"Sixteen,  —  I  mean,  I  am  going  in  seventeen," 
said  Tom,  hoping  his  uncle  noticed  how  much 
beard  he  had. 

"  Let  me  see,  —  your  father  had  some  notion  of 
making  you  an  engineer,  I  think  ? " 

VOL.  I. 21 


322  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  But  I  don't  think  I  could  get  any  money  at 
that  for  a  long  while,  could  I  ? " 

"That's  true  ;  but  people  don't  get  much  money 
at  anything,  my  boy,  when  they  're  only  sixteen. 
You  've  had  a  good  deal  of  schooling^  however :  I 
supposs  you  're  pretty  well  up  in  accounts,  eh  ? 
You  understand  book-keeping?" 

"  No,  "  said  Tom,  rather  falteringly.  "  I  was  in 
Practice.  But  Mr.  Stelling  says  I  write  a  good 
hand,  uncle.  That's  my  writing,"  added  Tom,  lay- 
ing on  the  table  a  copy  of  the  list  he  had  made 
yesterday. 

"  Ah  !  that 's  good,  that 's  good.  But,  you  see, 
the  best  hand  in  the  world  '11  not  get  you  a  better 
place  than  a  copying-clerk's,  if  you  know  nothing 
of  book-keeping,  —  nothing  of  accounts.  And  a 
copying-clerk's  a  cheap  article.  But  what  have 
you  been  learning  at  school,  then  ? " 

Mr.  Deane  had  not  occupied  himself  with  methods 
of  education,  and  had  no  precise  conception  of  what 
went  forward  in  expensive  schools. 

"  We  learned  Latin,"  said  Tom,  pausing  a  little 
between  each  item,  as  if  he  were  turning  over  the 
books  in  his  school-desk  to  assist  his  memory,  — 
"  a  good  deal  of  Latin ;  and  the  last  year  I  did 
Themes,  one  week  in  Latin  and  one  in  English  ; 
and  Greek  and  Roman  History ;  and  Euclid ;  and  I 
began  Algebra,  but  I  left  it  off  again  ;  and  we  had 
one  day  every  week  for  Arithmetic.  Then  I  used 
to  have  drawing-lessons  ;  and  there  were  several 
other  books  we  either  read  or  learned  out  of, 
English  Poetry,  and  Horse  Paulinae,  and  Blair's 
Rhetoric,  the  last  half." 

Mr.  Deane  tapped  his  snuff-box  again,  and 
screwed  up  his  mouth :  he  felt  in  the  position  of 


THE  DOWNFALL.  323 

many  estimable  persons  when  they  had  read  the 
New  Tariff,  and  found  how  many  commodities 
were  imported  of  which  they  knew  nothing :  like  a 
cautious  man  of  business,  he  was  not  going  to 
speak  rashly  of  a  raw  material  in  which  he  had  had 
no  experience.  But  the  presumption  was,  that  if 
it  had  been  good  for  anything,  so  successful  a  man 
as  himself  would  hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  it. 
About  Latin  he  had  an  opinion,  and  thought  that  in 
case  of  another  war,  since  people  would  no  longer 
wear  hair-powder,  it  would  be  well  to  put  a  tax  upon 
Latin  as  a  luxury  much  run  upon  by  the  higher 
classes,  and  not  telling  at  all  on  the  ship-owning 
department.  But,  for  what  he  knew,  the  Horse 
Paulinse  might  be  something  less  neutral.  On  the 
whole,  this  list  of  acquirements  gave  him  a  sort  of 
repulsion  towards  poor  Tom. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  at  last,  in  rather  a  cold  sardonic 
tone,  "  you  Ve  had  three  years  at  these  things,  — 
you  must  be  pretty  strong  in  'em.  Hadn't  you 
better  take  up  some  line  where  they  '11  come  in 
handy?" 

Tom  coloured,  and  burst  out  with  new  energy,  — 

"I'd  rather  not  have  any  employment  of  that 
sort,  uncle.  I  don't  like  Latin  and  those  things. 
I  don't  know  what  I  could  do  with  them  unless  I 
went  as  usher  in  a  school ;  and  I  don't  know  them 
well  enough  for  that :  besides,  I  would  as  soon 
carry  a  pair  of  panniers.  I  don't  want  to  be  that 
sort  of  person.  I  should  like  to  enter  into  some 
business  where  I  can  get  on,  —  a  manly  business, 
where  I  should  have  to  look  after  things,  and  get 
credit  for  what  I  did.  And  I  shall  want  to  keep 
my  mother  and  sister." 

"Ah,  young  gentleman,"  said  Mr.  Deane,  with 


324  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

that  tendency  to  repress  youthful  hopes  which 
stout  and  successful  men  of  fifty  find  one  of  their 
easiest  duties,  "  that 's  sooner  said  than  done,  — 
sooner  said  than  done." 

"  But  did  n't  you  get  on  in  that  way,  uncle  ? " 
said  Tom,  a  little  irritated  that  Mr.  Deane  did  not 
enter  more  rapidly  into  his  views.  "  I  mean,  did  n't 
you  rise  from  one  place  to  another  through  your 
abilities  and  good  conduct  ?  " 

"  Ay,  ay,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Deane,  spreading  himself 
in  his  chair  a  little,  and  entering  with  great  readi- 
ness into  a  retrospect  of  his  own  career.  "  But  I  '11 
tell  you  how  I  got  on.  It  was  n't  by  getting  astride 
a  stick,  and  thinking  it  would  turn  into  a  horse  if 
I  sat  on  it  long  enough.  I  kept  my  eyes  and  ears 
open,  sir,  and  I  was  n't  too  fond  of  my  own  back, 
and  I  made  my  master's  interest  my  own.  Why, 
with  only  looking  into  what  went  on  in  the  mill,  I 
found  out  how  there  was  a  waste  of  five  hundred  a 
year  that  might  be  hindered.  Why,  sir,  I  had  n't 
more  schooling  to  begin  with  than  a  charity  boy ; 
but  I  saw  pretty  soon  that  I  could  n't  get  on  far 
without  mastering  accounts,  and  I  learned  'em 
between  working  hours,  after  I'd  been  unlading. 
Look  here."  Mr.  Deane  opened  a  book,  and  pointed 
to  the  page.  "  I  write  a  good  hand  enough,  and  I  '11 
match  anybody  at  all  sorts  of  reckoning  by  the 
head,  and  I  got  it  all  by  hard  work,  and  paid  for  it 
out  of  my  own  earnings,  —  often  out  of  my  own 
dinner  and  supper.  And  I  looked  into  the  nature 
of  all  the  things  we  had  to  do  with  in  the  business, 
and  picked  up  knowledge  as  I  went  about  my  work, 
and  turned  it  over  in  my  head.  Why,  I'm  no 
mechanic, —  I  never  pretended  to  be,  —  but  I've 
thought  of  a  thing  or  two  that  the  mechanics  never 


THE  DOWNFALL.  325 

thought  of,  and  it  's  made  a  fine  difference  in  our 
returns.  And  there  is  n't  an  article  shipped  or  un- 
shipped at  our  wharf  but  I  know  the  quality  of  it. 
If  I  got  places,  sir,  it  was  because  I  made  myself 
fit  for  'em.  If  you  want  to  slip  into  a  round  hole, 
you  must  make  a  ball  of  yourself,  —  that 's  where 
it  is." 

Mr.  Deane  tapped  his  box  again.  He  had  been 
led  on  by  pure  enthusiasm  in  his  subject,  and  had 
really  forgotten  what  bearing  this  retrospective 
survey  had  on  his  listener.  He  had  found  occasion 
for  saying  the  same  thing  more  than  once  before, 
and  was  not  distinctly  aware  that  he  had  not  his 
port-wine  before  him. 

"  Well,  uncle,"  said  Tom,  with  a  slight  complaint 
in  his  tone,  "that's  what  I  should  like  to  do. 
Can't  /  get  on  in  the  same  way  ? " 

"  In  the  same  way  ? "  said  Mr.  Deane,  eying 
Torn  with  quiet  deliberation.  "There  go  two  or 
three  questions  to  that,  Master  Tom.  That  depends 
on  what  sort  of  material  you  are,  to  begin  with,  and 
whether  you  Ve  been  put  into  the  right  mill.  But 
I  '11  tell  you  what  it  is.  Your  poor  father  went  the 
wrong  way  to  work  in  giving  you  an  education.  It 
was  n't  my  business,  and  I  did  n't  interfere ;  but  it 
is  as  I  thought  it  would  be.  You  've  had  a  sort  of 
learning  that's  all  very  well  for  a  young  fellow 
like  our  Mr.  Stephen  Guest,  who'll  have  nothing 
to  do  but  sign  checks  all  his  life,  and  may  as  well 
have  Latin  inside  his  head  as  any  other  sort  of 
stuffing." 

"  But,  uncle,"  said  Tom,  earnestly,  "  I  don't  see 
why  the  Latin  need  hinder  me  from  getting  on  in 
business.  I  shall  soon  forget  it  all :  it  makes  no 
difference  to  me.  I  had  to  do  my  lessons  at  school ; 


326  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

but  I  always  thought  they  'd  never  be  of  any  use  to 
ine  afterwards,  —  I  did  n't  care  about  them." 

"  Ay,  ay,  that 's  all  very  well,"  said  Mr.  Deane ; 
"  but  it  does  n't  alter  what  I  was  going  to  say. 
Your  Latin  and  rigmarole  may  soon  dry  off  you, 
but  you  '11  be  but  a  bare  stick  after  that.  Besides, 
it 's  whitened  your  hands  and  taken  the  rough  work 
out  of  you.  And  what  do  you  know  ?  Why,  you 
know  nothing  about  book-keeping,  to  begin  with, 
and  not  so  much  of  reckoning  as  a  common  shop- 
man. You  '11  have  to  begin  at  a  low  round  of  the 
ladder,  let  me  tell  you,  if  you  mean  to  get  on  in 
life.  It's  no  use  forgetting  the  education  your 
father  's  been  paying  for,  if  you  don't  give  yourself 
a  new  un." 

Tom  bit  his  lips  hard  ;  he  felt  as  if  the  tears  were 
rising,  and  he  would  rather  die  than  let  them. 

"  You  want  me  to  help  you  to  a  situation,"  Mr. 
Deane  went  on ;  "  well,  I  Ve  no  fault  to  find  with 
that.  I  'm  willing  to  do  something  for  you.  But 
you  youngsters  nowadays  think  you  're  to  begin 
with  living  well  and  working  easy :  you  've  no 
notion  of  running  afoot  before  you  get  on  horseback. 
Now,  you  must  remember  what  you  are,  —  you  're  a 
lad  of  sixteen,  trained  to  nothing  particular.  There 's 
heaps  of  your  sort,  like  so  many  pebbles,  made  to 
fit  in  nowhere.  Well,  you  might  be  apprenticed  to 
some  business,  — a  chemist's  and  druggist's  perhaps  ; 
your  Latin  might  come  in  a  bit  there  — 

Tom  was  going  to  speak,  but  Mr.  Deane  put  up 
his  hand  and  said,  — 

"  Stop !  hear  what  I  've  got  to  say.  You  don't 
want  to  be  a  'prentice,  —  I  know,  I  know,  —  you  want 
to  make  more  haste,  —  and  you  don't  want  to  stand 
behind  a  counter.  But  if  you  're  a  copying-clerk, 


THE  DOWNFALL.  327 

you'll  have  to  stand  behind  a  desk,  and  stare  at 
your  ink  and  paper  all  day :  there  is  n't  much  out- 
look there,  and  you  won't  be  much  wiser  at  the  end 
of  the  year  than  at  the  beginning.  The  world  is  n't 
made  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  if  you  're  to  get  on 
in  the  world,  young  man,  you  must  know  what  the 
world 's  made  of.  Now  the  best  chance  for  you  'ud 
be  to  have  a  place  on  a  wharf  or  in  a  warehouse, 
where  you  'd  learn  the  smell  of  things,  —  but  you 
would  n't  like  that,  I  '11  be  bound ;  you  'd  have  to 
stand  cold  and  wet,  and  be  shouldered  about  by 
rough  fellows.  You're  too  fine  a  gentleman  for. 
that." 

Mr.  Deane  paused  and  looked  hard  at  Tom,  who 
certainly  felt  some  inward  struggle  before  he  could 
reply. 

"  I  would  rather  do  what  will  be  best  for  me  in 
the  end,  sir ;  I  would  put  up  with  what  was 
disagreeable." 

"  That 's  well,  if  you  can  carry  it  out.  But  you 
must  remember  it  is  n't  only  laying  hold  of  a  rope,  — 
you  must  go  on  pulling.  It 's  the  mistake  you  lads 
make  that  have  got  nothing  either  in  your  brains  or 
your  pocket,  to  think  you  Ve  got  a  better  start  in 
the  world  if  you  stick  yourselves  in  a  place  where 
you  can  keep  your  coats  clean,  and  have  the  shop- 
wenches  take  you  for  fine  gentlemen.  That  was  n't 
the  way  /  started,  young  man :  when  I  was  sixteen, 
my  jacket  smelt  of  tar,  and  I  was  n't  afraid  of  hand- 
ling cheeses.  That's  the  reason  I  can  wear  good 
broadcloth  now,  and  have  my  legs  under  the  same 
table  with  the  heads  of  the  best  firms  in  St.  Ogg's." 

Uncle  Deane  tapped  his  box,  and  seemed  to  ex- 
pand a  little  under  his  waistcoat  and  gold  chain,  as 
he  squared  his  shoulders  in  the  chair. 


328  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Is  there  any  place  at  liberty  that  you  know  of 
now,  uncle,  that  I  should  do  for  ?  I  should  like  to 
set  to  work  at  once,"  said  Tom,  with  a  slight  tremor 
in  his  voice. 

"  Stop  a  bit,  stop  a  bit ;  we  must  n't  be  in  too 
great  a  hurry.  You  must  bear  in  mind,  if  I  put  you 
in  a  place  you  re  a  bit  young  for,  because  you  hap- 
pen to  be  my  nephew,  I  shall  be  responsible  ior 
you.  And  there  's  no  better  reason,  you  know,  than 
your  being  my  nephew ;  because  it  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  you  're  good  for  anything." 

"I  hope  I  should  never  do  you  any  discredit, 
uncle,"  said  Tom,  hurt,  as  all  boys  are  at  the  state- 
ment of  the  unpleasant  truth  that  people  feel  no 
ground  for  trusting  them.  "  I  care  about  my  own 
credit  too  much  for  that." 

"  Well  done,  Tom,  well  done !  That 's  the  right 
spirit,  and  I  never  refuse  to  help  anybody  if  they  Ve 
a  mind  to  do  themselves  justice.  There's  a  young 
man  of  two-and-twenty  I  Ve  got  my  eye  on  now.  I 
shall  do  what  I  can  for  that  young  man,  —  he 's  got 
some  pith  in  him.  But  then,  you  see,  he's  made 
good  use  of  his  time,  —  a  first-rate  calculator,  —  can 
tell  you  the  cubic  contents  of  anything  in  no  time, 
and  put  me  up  the  other  day  to  a  new  market  for 
Swedish  bark ;  he 's  uncommonly  knowing  in  manu- 
factures, that  young  fellow." 

"  I  'd  better  set  about  learning  book-keeping, 
hadn't  I,  uncle?"  said  Tom,  anxious  to  prove  his 
readiness  to  exert  himself. 

"Yes,  yes,  you  can't  do  amiss  there.  But  .  .  . 
ah,  Spence,  you  're  back  again.  Well,  Tom,  there  's 
nothing  more  to  be  said  just  now,  I  think,  and  I 
must  go  to  business  again.  Good-by.  Kemember 
me  to  your  mother." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  329 

Mr.  Deane  put  out  his  hand,  with  an  air  of  friendly 
dismissal,  and  Tom  had  not  courage  to  ask  another 
question,  especially  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Spence. 
So  he  went  out  again  into  the  cold  damp  air.  He 
had  to  call  at  his  uncle  Glegg's  about  the  money  in 
the  savings-bank,  and  by  the  time  he  set  out  again, 
the  mist  had  thickened,  and  he  could  not  see  very 
far  before  him ;  but  going  along  River  Street  again, 
he  was  startled,  when  he  was  within  two  yards  of 
the  projecting  side  of  a  shop- window,  by  the  words 
"Dorlcote  Mill"  in  large  letters  on  a  hand-bill, 
placed  as  if  on  purpose  to  stare  at  him.  It  was  the 
catalogue  of  the  sale  to  take  place  the  next  week,  — 
it  was  a  reason  for  hurrying  faster  out  of  the  town. 

Poor  Tom  formed  no  visions  of  the  distant  future 
as  he  made  his  way  homeward ;  he  only  felt  that 
the  present  was  very  hard.  It  seemed  a  wrong 
towards  him  that  his  uncle  Deane  had  no  confidence 
in  him,  —  did  not  see  at  once  that  he  should  acquit 
himself  well,  which  Tom  himself  was  as  certain  of 
as  of  the  daylight.  Apparently  he,  Tom  Tul liver, 
was  likely  to  be  held  of  small  account  in  the  world, 
and  for  the  first  time  he  felt  a  sinking  of  heart  under 
the  sense  that  he  really  was  very  ignorant,  and 
could  do  very  little.  Who  was  that  enviable  young 
man,  that  could  tell  the  cubic  contents  of  things  in 
no  time,  and  make  suggestions  about  Swedish  bark  ? 
Swedish  bark !  Tom  had  been  used  to  be  so  entirely 
satisfied  with  himself  in  spite  of  his  breaking  down 
in  a  demonstration,  and  construing  nunc  illas  pro- 
mite  vires,  as  "  now  promise  those  men  ;  "  but  now 
he  suddenly  felt  at  a  disadvantage,  because  he  knew 
less  than  some  one  else  knew.  There  must  be  a 
world  of  things  connected  with  that  Swedish  bark, 
which,  if  he  only  knew  them,  might  have  helped 


330  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

him  to  get  on.  It  would  have  been  much  easier 
to  make  a  figure  with  a  spirited  horse  and  a  new 
saddle. 

Two  hours  ago,  as  Tom  was  walking  to  St.  Ogg's, 
he  saw  the  distant  future  before  him,  as  he  might 
have  seen  a  tempting  stretch  of  smooth  sandy  beach 
beyond  a  belt  of  flinty  shingles ;  he  was  on  the 
grassy  bank  then,  and  thought  the  shingles  might 
soon  be  passed.  But  now  his  feet  were  on  the 
sharp  stones ;  the  belt  of  shingles  had  widened,  and 
the  stretch  of  sand  had  dwindled  into  narrowness. 

"  What  did  my  uncle  Deane  say,  Tom  ? "  said 
Maggie,  putting  her  arm  through  Tom's  as  he  was 
wanning  himself  rather  drearily  by  the  kitchen  fire. 
"  Did  he  say  he  would  give  you  a  situation  ? " 

"  No,  he  did  n't  say  that.  He  did  n't  quite  promise 
me  anything ;  he  seemed  to  think  I  could  n't  have 
a  very  good  situation.  I  'm  too  young." 

"  But  did  n't  he  speak  kindly,  Tom  ? " 

"  Kindly  ?  Pooh !  what 's  the  use  of  talking  about 
that  ?  I  would  n't  care  about  his  speaking  kindly, 
if  I  could  get  a  situation.  But  it 's  such  a  nuisance 
and  bother,  —  I  've  been  at  school  all  -this  while 
learning  Latin  and  things,  —  not  a  bit  of  good  to  me, 
—  and  now  my  uncle  says,  I  must  set  about  learn- 
ing book-keeping  and  calculation,  and  those  things. 
He  seems  to  make  out  I  'm  good  for  nothing." 

Tom's  mouth  twitched  with  a  bitter  expression  as 
he  looked  at  the  fire. 

"  Oh,  what  a  pity  we  have  n't  got  Dominie  Samp- 
son ! "  said  Maggie,  who  could  n't  help  mingling 
some  gayety  with  their  sadness.  "  If  he  had  taught 
rne  book-keeping  by  double  entry  and  after  the 
Italian  method,  as  he  did  Lucy  Bertram,  I  could 
teach  you,  Tom." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  331 

"  You  teach  !  Yes,  I  dare  say.  That 's  always 
the  tone  you  take,"  said  Tom. 

"  Dear  Tom,  I  was  only  joking,"  said  Maggie, 
putting  her  cheek  against  his  coat-sleeve. 

"  But  it 's  always  the  same,  Maggie,"  said  Tom, 
with  the  little  frown  he  put  on  when  he  was  about 
to  be  justifiably  severe.  "You're  always  setting 
yourself  up  above  me  and  every  one  else,  and  I  Ve 
wanted  to  tell  you  about  it  several  times.  You 
ought  not  to  have  spoken  as  you  did  to  my  uncles 
and  aunts,  —  you  should  leave  it  to  me  to  take  care 
of  my  mother  and  you,  and  not  put  yourself  forward. 
You  think  you  know  better  than  any  one,  but  you  're 
almost  always  wrong.  I  can  judge  much  better 
than  you  can." 

Poor  Tom  !  he  had  just  come  from  being  lectured 
and  made  to  feel  his  inferiority :  the  reaction  of  his 
strong,  self -asserting  nature  must  take  place  some- 
how ;  and  here  was  a  case  in  which  he  could  justly 
show  himself  dominant.  Maggie's  cheek  flushed 
and  her  lip  quivered  with  conflicting  resentment 
and  affection,  and  a  certain  awe  as  well  as  admira- 
tion of  Tom's  firmer  and  more  effective  character. 
She  did  not  answer  immediately  ;  very  angry  words 
rose  to  her  lips,  but  they  were  driven  back  again, 
and  she  said  at  last, — 

"  You  often  think  I  am  conceited,  Tom,  when  I 
don't  mean  what  I  say  at  all  in  that  way.  I  don't 
mean  to  put  myself  above  you,  —  I  know  you  be- 
haved better  than  I  did  yesterday.  But  you  are 
ahvays  so  harsh  to  me,  Tom." 

With  the  last  words  the  resentment  was  rising 
again. 

"  No,  I  'm  not  harsh,"  said  Tom,  with  severe  de- 
cision. "  I  'm  always  kind  to  you ;  and  so  I  shall 


332  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

be :  I  shall  always  take  care  of  you.     But  you  must 
mind  what  I  say." 

Their  mother  came  in  now;  and  Maggie  rushed 
away,  that  her  burst  of  tears,  which  she  felt  must 
come,  might  not  happen  till  she  was  safe  upstairs. 
They  were  very  bitter  tears :  everybody  in  the 
world  seemed  so  hard  and  unkind  to  Maggie :  there 
was  no  indulgence,  no  fondness,  such  as  she  ima- 
gined when  she  fashioned  the  world  afresh  in  her 
own  thoughts.  In  books  there  were  people  who 
were  always  agreeable  or  tender,  and  delighted  to  do 
things  that  made  one  happy,  and  who  did  not  show 
their  kindness  by  finding  fault.  The  world  outside 
the  books  was  not  a  happy  one,  Maggie  felt :  it 
seemed  to  be  a  world  where  people  behaved  the  best 
to  those  they  did  not  pretend  to  love,  and  that  did 
not  belong  to  them.  And  if  life  had  no  love  in  it, 
what  else  was  there  for  Maggie  ?  Nothing  but  pov- 
erty and  the  companionship  of  her  mother's  narrow 
griefs,  —  perhaps  of  her  father's  heart-cutting  child- 
ish dependence.  There  is  no  hopelessness  so  sad  as 
that  of  early  youth,  when  the  soul  is  made  up  of 
wants,  and  has  no  long  memories,  no  superadded  life 
in  the  life  of  others ;  though  we  who  look  on  think 
lightly  of  such  premature  despair,  as  if  our  vision  of 
the  future  lightened  the  blind  sufferer's  present. 

Maggie  in  her  brown  frock,  with  her  eyes  red- 
dened and  her  heavy  hair  pushed  back,  looking  from 
the  bed  where  her  father  lay,  to  the  dull  walls  of 
this  sad  chamber  which  was  the  centre  of  her  world, 
was  a  creature  full  of  eager,  passionate  longings  for 
all  that  was  beautiful  and  glad ;  thirsty  for  all 
knowledge ;  with  an  ear  straining  after  dreamy 
music  that  died  away  and  would  not  come  near  to 
her ;  with  a  blind,  unconscious  yearning  for  some- 


THE  DOWNFALL.  333 

thing  that  would  link  together  the  wonderful  im- 
pressions of  this  mysterious  life,  and  give  her  soul 
a  sense  of  home  in  it. 

No  wonder,  when  there  is  this  contrast  between 
the  outward  and  the  inward,  that  painful  collisions 
come  of  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TENDING     TO     REFUTE     THE     POPULAR     PREJUDICE 
AGAINST   THE   PRESENT   OF   A   POCKET-KNIFE. 

IN  that  dark  time  of  December,  the  sale  of  the 
household  furniture  lasted  beyond  the  middle  of  the 
second  day.  Mr.  Tulliver,  who  had  begun,  in  his 
intervals  of  consciousness,  to  manifest  an  irritability 
which  often  appeared  to  have  as  a  direct  effect  the 
recurrence  of  spasmodic  rigidity  and  insensibility, 
had  lain  in  this  living  death  throughout  the  critical 
hours  when  the  noise  of  the  sale  came  nearest  to  his 
chamber.  Mr.  Turnbull  had  decided  that  it  would 
be  a  less  risk  to  let  him  remain  where  he  was,  than 
to  move  him  to  Luke's  cottage,  —  a  plan  which  the 
good  Luke  had  proposed  to  Mrs.  Tulliver,  thinking 
it  would  be  very  bad  if  the  master  were  "  to  waken 
up  "  at  the  noise  of  the  sale  ;  and  the  wife  and  chil- 
dren had  sat  imprisoned  in  the  silent  chamber, 
watching  the  large  prostrate  figure  on  the  bed,  and 
trembling  lest  the  blank  face  should  suddenly  show 
some  response  to  the  sounds  which  fell  on  their  own 
ears  with  such  obstinate,  painful  repetition. 

But  it  was  over  at  last,—  that  time  of  importunate 
certainty  and  eye-straining  suspense.  The  sharp 
sound  of  a  voice,  almost  as  metallic  as  the  rap  that 
followed  it,  had  ceased ;  the  tramping  of  footsteps 
on  the  gravel  had  died  out,  Mrs.  Tulliver's  blond 
face  seemed  aged  ten  years  by  the  last  t'lirty  hours : 
the  poor  woman's  mind  had  been  busy  divining  when 


THE  DOWNFALL.  335 

her  favourite  things  were  being  knocked  down  by 
the  terrible  hammer ;  her  heart  had  been  fluttering 
at  the  thought  that  first  one  thing  and  then  another 
had  gone  to  be  identified  as  hers  in  the  hateful  pub- 
licity of  the  Golden  Lion ;  and  all  the  while  she 
had  to  sit  and  make  no  sign  of  this  inward  agitation. 
Such  things  bring  lines  in  well-rounded  faces,  and 
broaden  the  streaks  of  white  among  the  hairs  that 
once  looked  as  if  they  had  been  dipped  in  pure  sun- 
shine. Already,  at  three  o'clock,  Kezia,  the  good- 
hearted,  bad-tempered  housemaid,  who  regarded  all 
people  that  came  to  the  sale  as  her  personal  enemies, 
the  dirt  on  whose  feet  was  of  a  peculiarly  vile 
quality,  had  begun  to  scrub  and  swill  with  an 
energy  much  assisted  by  a  continual  low  muttering 
against  "  folks  as  came  to  buy  up  other  folks's 
things,"  and  made  light  of  "  scrazing  "  the  tops  of 
mahogany  tables  over  which  better  folks  than  them- 
selves had  had  to  —  suffer  a  waste  of  tissue  through 
evaporation.  She  was  not  scrubbing  indiscrimi- 
nately, for  there  would  be  further  dirt  of  the  same 
atrocious  kind  made  by  people  who  had  still  to 
fetch  away  their  purchases  :  but  she  was  bent  on 
bringing  the  parlour,  where  that  "pipe-smoking 
pig"  the  bailiff  had  sat,  to  such  an  appearance  of 
scant  comfort  as  could  be  given  to  it  by  cleanli- 
ness, and  the  few  articles  of  furniture  bought  in  for 
the  family.  Her  mistress  and  the  young  folks 
should  have  their  tea  in  it  that  night,  Kezia  was 
determined. 

It  was  between  five  and  six  o'clock,  near  the 
usual  tea-time,  when  she  came  upstairs  and  said 
that  Master  Tom  was  wanted.  The  person  who 
wanted  him  was  in  the  kitchen,  and  in  the  first 
moments  by  the  imperfect  fire  and  candle  light, 


336  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Tom  had  not  even  an  indefinite  sense  of  any 
acquaintance  with  the  rather  broad-set  but  active 
figure,  perhaps  two  years  older  than  himself,  that 
looked  at  him  with  a  pair  of  blue  eyes  set  in  a  disk 
of  freckles,  and  pulled  some  curly  red  locks  with  a 
strong  intention  of  respect.  A  low-crowned  oilskin- 
covered  hat,  and  a  certain  shiny  deposit  of  dirt  on 
the  rest  of  the  costume,  as  of  tablets  prepared  for 
writing  upon,  suggested  a  calling  that  had  to  do 
with  boats  ;  but  this  did  not  help  Tom's  memory. 

"  Sarvant,  Mister  Tom,"  said  he  of  the  red  locks, 
with  a  smile  which  seemed  to  break  through  a  self- 
imposed  air  of  melancholy.  "  You  don't  know  me 
again,  I  doubt,"  he  went  on,  as  Tom  continued  to 
look  at  him  inquiringly ;  "  but  I  'd  like  to  talk  to 
you  by  yourself  a  bit,  please." 

"  There  's  a  fire  i'  the  parlour,  Master  Tom,"  said 
Kezia,  who  objected  to  leaving  the  kitchen  in  the 
crisis  of  toasting. 

"  Come  this  way,  then,"  said  Tom,  wondering  if 
this  young  fellow  belonged  to  Guest  &  Co.'s  Wharf, 
for  his  imagination  ran  continually  towards  that 
particular  spot,  and  uncle  Deane  might  any  time  be 
sending  for  him  to  say  that  there  was  a  situation  at 
liberty. 

The  bright  fire  in  the  parlour  was  the  only  light 
that  showed  the  few  chairs,  the  bureau,  the  carpet- 
less  floor,  and  the  one  table,  —  no,  not  the  one 
table :  there  was  a  second  table,  in  a  corner,  with  a 
large  Bible  and  a  few  other  books  upon  it  It  was 
this  new  strange  bareness  that  Tom  felt  first,  before 
he  thought  of  looking  again  at  the  face  which  was 
also  lit  up  by  the  fire,  and  which  stole  a  half-shy, 
questioning  glance  at  him  as  the  entirely  strange 
voice  said, — 


THE  DOWNFALL.  337 

"'  Why  !  you  don't  remember  Bob,  then,  as  you 
gen  the  pocket-knife  to,  Mr.  Tom  ? " 

The  rough-handled  pocket-knife  was  taken  out  in 
the  same  moment,  and  the  largest  blade  opened  by 
way  of  irresistible  demonstration. 

"  What !  Bob  Jakin  ?  "  said  Tom,  —  not  with  any 
cordial  delight,  for  he  felt  a  little  ashamed  of  that 
early  intimacy  symbolized  by  the  pocket-knife,  and 
was  not  at  all  sure  that  Bob's  motives  for  recalling 
it  were  entirely  admirable. 

"  Ay,  ay,  Bob  Jakin,  —  if  Jakin  it  must  be,  'cause 
there  's  so  many  Bobs  as  you  went  arter  the  squer- 
rils  with,  that  day  as  I  plumped  right  down  from 
the  bough,  and  bruised  my  shins  a  good  un,  — but 
I  got  the  squerril  tight  for  all  that,  an'  a  scratter  it 
was.  An'  this  littlish  blade 's  broke,  you  see,  but  I 
would  n't  hev  a  new  un  put  in,  'cause  they  might 
be  cheatin'  me  an'  givin'  me  another  knife  istid,  for 
there  is  n't  such  a  blade  i'  the  country,  —  it 's  got 
used  to  my  hand,  like.  An'  there  was  niver  nobody 
else  gen  me  nothin'  but  what  I  got  by  my  own 
sharpness,  only  you,  Mr.  Tom ;  if  it  was  n't  Bill 
Fawks  as  gen  me  the  terrier  pup  istid  o'  drowndin' 
it,  an'  I  had  to  jaw  him  a  good  un  afore  he  'd  give 
it  me." 

Bob  spoke  with  a  sharp  and  rather  treble  volu- 
bility, and  got  through  his  long  speech  with  sur- 
prising despatch,  giving  the  blade  of  his  knife  an 
affectionate  rub  on  his  sleeve  when  he  had  finished. 

"  Well,  Bob,"  said  Tom,  with  a  slight  air  of  patron- 
age, the  foregoing  reminiscences  having  disposed 
him  to  be  as  friendly  as  was  becoming,  though  there 
was  no  part  of  his  acquaintance  with  Bob  that  he 
remembered  better  than  the  cause  of  their  parting 
quarrel ;  "  is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you  ? " 

VOL.  i.  —  22 


338  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"  Why,  no,  Mr.  Tom,"  answered  Bob,  shutting  up 
his  knife  with  a  click  and  returning  it  to  his  pocket, 
where  he  seemed  to  be  feeling  for  something  else. 
"  I  should  n't  ha'  come  back  upon  you  now  ye  're  i' 
trouble,  an'  folks  say  as  the  master,  as  I  used  to 
frighten  the  birds  for,  an'  he  flogged  me  a  bit  for 
fun  when  he  catched  me  eatin'  the  turnip,  as  they 
say  he  '11  niver  lift  up  his  yead  no  more,  —  I 
should  n't  ha'  come  now  to  ax  you  to  gi'  rne  another 
knife,  'cause  you  gen  me  one  afore.  If  a  chap  gives 
me  one  black  eye,  that 's  enough  for  me :  I  sha'n't 
ax  him  for  another  afore  I  sarve  him.  out;  an'  a 
good  turn  's  worth  as  much  as  a  bad  un,  anyhow. 
I  shall  niver  grow  down'ards  again,  Mr.  Tom,  an' 
you  war  the  little  chap  as  I  liked  the  best  when 
/  war  a  little  chap,  for  all  you  leathered  me,  and 
would  n't  look  at  me  again.  There 's  Dick  Brumby, 
there,  I  could  leather  him  as  much  as  I  'd  a  mind ; 
but  lors  !  you  get  tired  o'  leatherin'  a  chap  when 
you  can  Diver  make  him  see  what  you  want  him  to 
shy  at  I'n  seen  chaps  as  'ud  stand  starin'  at  a 
bough  till  their  eyes  shot  out,  afore  they  'd  see  as  a 
bird's  tail  war  n't  a  leaf.  It's  poor  work  goin'  wi' 
such  raff,  —  but  you  war  allays  a  rare  un  at  shying, 
Mr.  Tom,  an'  I  could  trusten  to  you  for  droppin' 
down  wi'  your  stick  in  the  nick  o'  time  at  a  runnin' 
rat,  or  a  stoat,  or  that,  when  I  war  a-beatin'  the 
bushes." 

Bob  had  drawn  out  a  dirty  canvas  bag,  and  would 
perhaps  not  have  paused  just  then  if  Maggie  had 
not  entered  the  room  and  darted  a  look  of  surprise 
and  curiosity  at  him,  whereupon  he  pulled  his  red 
locks  again  with  due  respect.  But  the  next  moment 
the  sense  of  the  altered  room  came  upon  Maggie 
with  a  force  that  overpowered  the  thought  of  Bob's 


THE  DOWNFALL.  339 

presence.  Her  eyes  had  immediately  glanced  from 
him  to  the  place  where  the  bookcase  had  hung ; 
there  was  nothing  now  but  the  oblong  unfadcd 
space  on  the  wall,  and  below  it  the  small  table 
with  the  Bible  and  the  few  other  books. 

"  Oh,  Tom,"  she  burst  out,  clasping  her  hands, 
"  where  are  the  books  ?  I  thought  my  uncle  Glegg 
said  he  would  buy  them,  —  did  n't  he  ?  —  are  those 
all  they  've  left  us  ? " 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  Tom,  with  a  sort  of  desperate 
indifference.  "  Why  should  they  buy  many  books 
when  they  bought  so  little  furniture  ? " 

"  Oh,  but,  Tom,"  said  Maggie,  her  eyes  filling  with 
tears,  as  she  rushed  up  to  the  table  to  see  what 
books  had  been  rescued.  "  Our  dear  old  Pilgrim's 
Progress  that  you  coloured  with  your  little  paints ; 
and  that  picture  of  Pilgrim  with  a  mantle  on,  look- 
ing just  like  a  turtle,  —  oh  dear  ! "  Maggie  went  on, 
half  sobbing  as  she  turned  over  the  few  books.  "  I 
thought  we  should  never  part  with  that  while  we 
lived,  —  everything  is  going  away  from  us,  —  the 
end  of  our  lives  will  have  nothing  in  it  like  the 
beginning ! " 

Maggie  turned  away  from  the  table  and  threw 
herself  into  a  chair,  with  the  big  tears  ready  to  roll 
down  her  cheeks,  —  quite  blinded  to  the  presence 
of  Bob,  who  was  looking  at  her  with  the  pursuant 
gaze  of  an  intelligent  dumb  animal,  with  percep- 
tions more  perfect  than  his  comprehension. 

"  Well,  Bob,"  said  Tom,  feeling  that  the  subject 
of  the  books  was  unseasonable,  "  I  suppose  you  just 
came  to  see  me  because  we  're  in  trouble  ?  That 
was  very  good-natured  of  you." 

"  I  '11  tell  you  how  it  is,  Master  Tom,"  said  Bob, 
beginning  to  untwist  his  canvas  bag.  "  You  see, 


340  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

I 'n  been  with  a  barge  this  two  'ear  —  that's  how 
I  'n  been  gettin'  my  livin'  —  if  it  was  n't  when  I  was 
tentin'  the  furnace,  between  whiles,  at  Torry's  mill. 
But  a  fortni't  ago  I  'd  a  rare  bit  o'  luck,  — I  allays 
thought  I  was  a  lucky  chap,  for  I  niver  set  a  trap 
but  what  I  catched  something ;  but  this  was  n't  a 
trap,  it  was  a  fire  i'  Torry's  mill,  an'  I  doused  it, 
else  it  'ud  ha'  set  th'  oil  alight,  an'  the  genelman 
gen  me  ten  suvreigns,  —  he  g3n  me  'em  himself 
last  week.  An'  he  said  first,  I  was  a  sperrited 
chap,  —  but  I  knowed  that  afore,  —  but  then  he 
outs  wi'  the  ten  suvreigns,  an'  that  war  summat 
new.  Here  they  are,  —  all  but  one  !  "  Here  Bob 
emptied  the  canvas  bag  on  the  table.  "  An'  when 
I  'd  got  'em,  my  head  was  all  of  a  boil  like  a  kettle 
o'  broth,  thinkin'  what  sort  o'  life  I  should  take  to, 
—  for  there  war  a  many  trades  I  'd  thought  on ; 
for  as  for  the  barge,  I  'm  clean  tired  out  wi't,  for  it 
pulls  the  days  out  till  they're  as  long  as  pigs' 
chitterlings.  An'  I  thought  first  I  'd  ha'  ferrets  an' 
dogs,  an'  be  a  rat-catcher;  an'  then  I  thought  as  I 
should  like  a  bigger  way  o'  life,  as  I  did  n't  know  so 
well ;  for  I  'n  seen  to  the  bottom  o'  rat-catching ; 
an'  I  thought,  an'  thought,  till  at  last  I  settled  I  'd 
be  a  packman,  for  they  're  knowin'  fellers,  the  pack- 
men are,  —  an'  I  'd  carry  the  lightest  things  I  could  i' 
my  pack,  —  an'  there  'd  be  a  use  for  a  feller's  tongue, 
as  is  no  use  neither  wi'  rats  nor  barges.  An'  I 
should  go  about  the  country  far  an'  wide,  an'  come 
round  the  women  wi'  my  tongue,  an'  get  my  dinner 
hot  at  the  public,  —  lors  !  it  'ud  be  a  lovely  life  ! " 

Bob  paused,  and  then  said,  with  defiant  decision, 
as  if  resolutely  turning  his  back  on  that  paradisaic 
picture,  — 

"  But  I  don't  mind  about  it,  —  not  a  chip !    An' 


THE  DOWNFALL.  341 

I  'n  changed  one  o'  the  suvreigns  to  buy  my  mother 
a  goose  for  dinner,  an'  I  'n  bought  a  blue  plush  wes- 
coat,  an'  a  sealskin  cap  —  for  if  I  meant  to  be  a 
packman,  I  'd  do  it  respectable.  But  I  don't  mind 
about  it,  —  not  a  chip !  My  yead  is  n't  a  turnip,  an' 
I  shall  p'r'aps  have  a  chance  o'  dousing  another  fire 
afore  long.  I  'm  a  lucky  chap.  So  I  '11  thank  you 
to  take  the  nine  suvreigns,  Mr.  Tom,  and  set  your- 
sen  up  with  'em  somehow,  —  if  it 's  true  as  the  mas- 
ter 's  broke.  They  may  n't  go  fur  enough,  —  but 
they'll  help." 

Tom  was  touched  keenly  enough  to  forget  his 
pride  and  suspicion. 

"  You  're  a  very  kind  fellow,  Bob,"  he  said,  colour- 
ing, with  that  little  diffident  tremor  in  his  voice, 
which  gave  a  certain  charm  even  to  Tom's  pride  and 
severity,  "  and  I  sha'n't  forget  you  again,  though  I 
didn't  know  you  this  evening.  But  I  can't  take 
the  nine  sovereigns :  I  should  be  taking  your  little 
fortune  from  you,  and  they  would  n't  do  me  much 
good  either." 

"  Would  n't  they,  Mr.  Tom  ? "  said  Bob,  regret- 
fully. "  Now  don't  say  so  'cause  you  think  I  want 
'em.  I  aren't  a  poor  chap.  My  mother  gets  a 
good  penn'orth  wi'  picking  feathers  an'  things ;  an' 
if  she  eats  nothin'  but  bread-an'-water,  it  runs  to  fat. 
An'  I  'm  such  a  lucky  chap ;  an'  I  doubt  you  are  n't 
quite  so  lucky,  Mr.  Tom,  —  th'  old  master  is  n't, 
anyhow,  —  an'  so  you  might  take  a  slice  o'  my  luck 
an'  no  harm  done.  Lors  !  I  found  a  leg  o'  pork  i' 
the  river  one  day :  it  had  tumbled  out  o'  one  o'  them 
round-sterned  Dutchmen,  I  '11  be  bound.  Come, 
think  better  on  it,  Mr.  Tom,  for  old  'quinetance' 
sake,  —  else  I  shall  think  you  bear  me  a  grudge." 

Bob  pushed  the  sovereigns  forward;  but  before 


342  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Tom  could  speak,  Maggie,  clasping  her  hands,  and 
looking  penitently  at  Bob,  said,  — 

"  Oh,  I  'm  so  sprry,  Bob,  —  I  never  thought  you 
were  so  good.  Why,  I  think  you're  the  kindest 
person  in  the  world  ! " 

Bob  had  not  been  aware  of  the  injurious  opinion 
for  which  Maggie  was  performing  an  inward  act  of 
penitence,  but  he  smiled  with  pleasure  at  this  hand- 
some eulogy,  —  especially  from  a  young  lass  who,  as 
he  informed  his  mother  that  evening,  had  "  such 
uncommon  eyes,  they  looked  somehow  as  they 
made  him  feel  nohow." 

"  No,  indeed,  Bob,  I  can't  take  them,"  said  Tom ; 
"  but  don't  think  I  feel  your  kindness  less  because  I 
say  no.  I  don't  want  to  take  anything  from  any- 
body, but  to  work  my  own  way.  And  those  sove- 
reigns would  n't  help  me  much,  —  they  would  n't, 
really,  —  if  I  were  to  take  them.  Let  me  shake 
hands  with  you  instead." 

Tom  put  out  his  pink  palm,  and  Bob  was  not 
slow  to  place  his  hard  grimy  hand  within  it. 

"  Let  me  put  the  sovereigns  in  the  bag  again," 
said  Maggie ;  "  and  you  '11  come  and  see  us  when 
you  've  bought  your  pack,  Bob." 

"  It 's  like  as  if  1  'd  come  out  o'  make-believe,  o* 
purpose  to  show  'em  you,"  said  Bob,  with  an  air 
of  discontent,  as  Maggie  gave  him  the  bag  again, 
"a-taking  'em  back  i'  this  way.  I  am  a  bit  of  a 
Do,  you  know ;  but  it  is  n't  that  sort  o'  Do :  it 's 
on'y  when  a  feller 's  a  big  rogue  or  a  big  flat,  I  like 
to  let  him  in  a  bit,  that 's  all." 

"  Now,  don't  you  be  up  to  any  tricks,  Bob,"  said 
Tom,  "  else  you  '11  get  transported  some  day." 

"  No,  no ;  not  me,  Mr.  Tom,"  said  Bob,  with  an 
air  of  cheerful  confidence.  "  There 's  no  law  again' 


THE  DOWNFALL.  343 

flea-bites.  If  I  was  n't  to  take  a  fool  in  now  and 
then,  he  'd  niver  get  any  wiser.  But,  lors  !  hev  a 
suvreign  to  buy  you  and  Miss  summat,  on'y  for  a 
token, — just  to  match  my  pocket-knife." 

While  Bob  was  speaking,  he  laid  down  the  sover- 
eign, and  resolutely  twisted  up  his  bag  again.  Tom 
pushed  back  the  gold,  and  said,  "  No,  indeed,  Bob ; 
thank  you  heartily :  but  I  can't  take  it."  And 
Maggie,  taking  it  between  her  fingers,  held  it  up  to 
Bob,  and  said  more  persuasively, — 

"  Not  now,  —  but  perhaps  another  time.  If  ever 
Tom  or  my  father  wants  help  that  you  can  give, 
we  '11  let  you  know,  —  won't  we,  Tom  ?  That 's 
what  you  would  like,  —  to  have  us  always  depend 
on  you  as  a  friend  that  we  can  go  to,  —  is  n't  it, 
Bob  ? " 

"  Yes,  Miss,  and  thank  you,"  said  Bob,  reluctantly 
taking  the  money ;  "  that 's  what  I  'd  like,  —  any- 
thing as  you  like.  An'  I  wish  you  good-by,  Miss, 
and  good  luck,  Mr.  Tom,  and  thank  you  for  shak- 
ing hands  wi'  me,  though  you  wouldn't  take  the 
money." 

Kezia's  entrance,  with  very  black  looks,  to  inquire 
if  she  should  n't  bring  in  the  tea  now,  or  whether 
the  toast  was  to  get  hardened  to  a  brick,  was  a  sea- 
sonable check  on  Bob's  flux  of  words,  and  hastened 
his  parting  bow. 


CHAPTEK  VIL 

HOW  A   HEN   TAKES   TO   STRATAGEM. 

THE  days  passed,  and  Mr.  Tulliver  showed,  at  least 
to  the  eyes  of  the  medical  man,  stronger  and 
stronger  symptoms  of  a  gradual  return  to  his  nor- 
mal condition ;  the  paralytic  obstruction  was,  little 
by  little,  losing  its  tenacity,  and  the  mind  was  ris- 
ing from  under  it  with  fitful  struggles,  like  a  living 
creature  making  its  way  from  under  a  great  snow- 
drift, that  slides  and  slides  again,  and  shuts  up  the 
newly  made  opening. 

Time  would  .have  seemed  to  creep  to  the  watch- 
ers by  the  bed,  if  it  had  only  been  measured  by 
the  doubtful,  distant  hope  which  kept  count  of  the 
moments  within  the  chamber ;  but  it  was  measured 
for  them  by  a  fast-approaching  dread  which  made 
the  nights  come  too  quickly.  While  Mr.  Tulliver 
was  slowly  becoming  himself  again,  his  lot  was 
hastening  towards  its  moment  of  most  palpable 
change.  The  taxing-masters  had  done  their  work 
like  any  respectable  gunsmith  conscientiously  pre- 
paring the  musket  that,  duly  pointed  by  a  brave 
arm,  will  spoil  a  life  or  two.  Allocaturs,  filing  of 
bills  in  Chancery,  decrees  of  sale,  are  legal  chain- 
shot  or  bomb-shells  that  can  never  hit  a  solitary 
mark,  but  must  fall  with  widespread  shattering. 
So  deeply  inherent  is  it  in  this  life  of  ours  that  men 
have  to  suffer  for  each  other's  sins,  so  inevitably 
diffusive  is  human  suffering,  that  even  justice  makes 
its  victims,  and  we  can  conceive  no  retribution  that 


THE  DOWNFALL.  345 

does  not  spread  beyond  its  mark  in  pulsations  of 
unmerited  pain. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  second  week  in  January 
the  bills  were  out  advertising  the  sale,  under  a  de- 
cree of  Chancery,  of  Mr.  Tulliver's  farming  and 
other  stock,  to  be  followed  by  a  sale  of  the  mill  and 
land,  held  in  the  proper  after-dinner  hour  at  the 
Golden  Lion.  The  miller  himself,  unaware  of  the 
lapse  of  time,  fancied  himself  still  in  that  first 
stage  of  his  misfortunes  when  expedients  might  be 
thought  of;  and  often  in  his  conscious  hours  talked 
in  a  feeble,  disjointed  manner,  of  plans  he  would 
carry  out  when  he  "  got  well."  The  wife  and  chil- 
dren were  not  without  hope  of  an  issue  that  would 
at  least  save  Mr.  Tulliver  from  leaving  the  old  spot 
and  seeking  an  entirely  strange  life.  For  uncle 
Deane  had  been  induced  to  interest  himself  in  this 
stage  of  the  business.  It  would  not,  he  acknowl- 
edged, be  a  bad  speculation  for  Guest  &  Co.  to  buy 
Dorlcote  Mill,  and  carry  on  the  business,  which 
was  a  good  one,  and  might  be  increased  by  the 
addition  of  steam-power ;  in  which  case  Tulliver 
might  be  retained  as  manager.  Still  Mr.  Deane 
would  say  nothing  decided  about  the  matter :  the 
fact  that  Wakem  held  the  mortgage  on  the  land 
might  put  it  into  his  head  to  bid  for  the  whole 
estate,  and,  further,  to  outbid  the  cautious  firm  of 
Guest  &  Co.,  who  did  not  carry  on  business  on  sen- 
timental grounds.  Mr.  Deane  was  obliged  to  tell 
Mrs.  Tulliver  something  to  that  effect,  when  he 
rode  over  to  the  mill  to  inspect  the  books  in  com- 
pany with  Mrs.  Glegg :  for  she  had  observed  that 
"if  Guest  &  Co.  would  only  think  about  it,  Mr. 
Tulliver's  father  and  grandfather  had  been  carry- 
ing on  Dorlcote  Mill  long  before  the  oil-mill  of  that 


346  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

firm  had  been  so  much  as  thought  of."  Mr.  Deane, 
in  reply,  doubted  whether  that  was  precisely  the 
relation  between  the  two  mills  which  would  deter- 
mine their  value  as  investments.  As  for  uncle 
Glegg,  the  thing  lay  quite  beyond  his  imagination  ; 
the  good-natured  man  felt  sincere  pity  for  the 
Tulliver  family,  but  his  money  was  all  locked  up 
in  excellent  mortgages,  and  he  could  run  no  risk  ; 
that  would  be  unfair  to  his  own  relatives ;  but  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  that  Tulliver  should  have 
some  new  flannel  waiscoats  which  he  had  himself 
renounced  in  favour  of  a  more  elastic  commodity, 
and  that  he  would  buy  Mrs.  Tulliver  a  pound  of  tea 
now  and  then ;  it  would  be  a  journey  which  his 
benevolence  delighted  in  beforehand,  to  carry  the 
tea,  and  see  her  pleasure  on  being  assured  it  was 
the  best  black. 

Still,  it  was  clear  that  Mr.  Deane  was  kindly 
disposed  towards  the  Tullivers.  One  day  he  had 
brought  Lucy,  who  was  come  home  for  the  Christ- 
mas holidays,  and  the  little  blond  angel-head  had 
pressed  itself  against  Maggie's  darker  cheek  with 
many  kisses  and  some  tears.  These  fair  slim 
daughters  keep  up  a  tender  spot  in  the  heart  of 
many  a  respectable  partner  in  a  respectable  firm, 
and  perhaps  Lucy's  anxious  pitying  questions  about 
her  poor  cousins  helped  to  make  uncle  Deane  more 
prompt  in  finding  Tom  a  temporary  place  in  the 
warehouse,  and  in  putting  him  in  the  way  of  getting 
evening  lessons  in  book-keeping  and  calculation. 

That  might  have  cheered  the  lad  and  fed  his 
hopes  a  little,  if  there  had  not  come  at  the  same 
time  the  much-dreaded  blow  of  finding  that  his 
father  must  be  a  bankrupt,  after  all ;  at  least,  the 
creditors  must  be  asked  to  take  less  than  their  due, 


THE  DOWNFALL.  347 

which  to  Tom's  untechnical  mind  was  the  same 
thing  as  bankruptcy.  His  father  must  not  only 
be  said  to  have  "lost  his  property,"  but  to  have 
"  failed,"  —  the  word  that  carried  the  worst  obloquy 
to  Tom's  mind.  For  when  the  defendant's  claim 
for  costs  had  been  satisfied,  there  would  remain 
the  friendly  bill  of  Mr.  Gore,  and  the  deficiency 
at  the  bank,  as  well  as  the  other  debts,  which 
would  make  the  assets  shrink  into  unequivocal 
disproportion :  "  not  more  than  ten  or  twelve  shil- 
lings in  the  pound,"  predicted  Mr.  Deane,  in  a  de- 
cided tone,  tightening  his  lips ;  and  the  words  fell 
on  Tom  like  a  scalding  liquid,  leaving  a  continual 
smart. 

He  was  sadly  in  want  of  something  to  keep  up 
his  spirits  a  little  in  the  unpleasant  newness  of  his 
position,  —  suddenly  transported  from  the  easy  car- 
peted ennui  of  study-hours  at  Mr.  Stelling's,  and 
the  busy  idleness  of  castle-building  in  a  "  last  half " 
at  school,  to  the  companionship  of  sacks  and  hides, 
and  bawling  men  thundering  down  heavy  weights 
at  his  elbow.  The  first  step  towards  getting  on  in 
the  world  was  a  chill,  dusty,  noisy  affair,  and  im- 
plied going  without  one's  tea  in  order  to  stay  in  St. 
Ogg's  and  have  an  evening  lesson  from  a  one- 
armed  elderly  clerk,  in  a  room  smelling  strongly  of 
bad  tobacco.  Tom's  young  pink-and-white  face  had 
its  colours  very  much  deadened  by  the  time  he  took 
off  his  hat  at  home,  and  sat  down  with  keen  hunger 
to  his  supper.  No  wonder  he  was  a  little  cross  if 
his  mother  or  Maggie  spoke  to  him. 

But  all  this  while  Mrs.  Tulliver  was  brooding 
over  a  scheme  by  which  she,  and  no  one  else,  would 
avert  the  result  most  to  be  dreaded,  and  prevent 
Wakem  from  entertaining  the  purpose  of  bidding 


348  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

for  the  mill.  Imagine  a  truly  respectable  and 
amiable  hen,  by  some  portentous  anomaly,  taking 
to  reflection  and  inventing  combinations  by  which 
she  might  prevail  on  Hodge  not  to  wring  her  neck, 
or  send  her  and  her  chicks  to  market :  the  result 
could  hardly  be  other  than  much  cackling  and  flut- 
tering. Mrs.  Tulliver,  seeing  that  everything  had 
gone  wrong,  had  begun  to  think  that  she  had  been 
too  passive  in  life ;  and  that,  if  she  had  applied  her 
mind  to  business,  and  taken  a  strong  resolution  now 
and  then,  it  would  have  been  all  the  better  for  her 
and  her  family.  Nobody,  it  appeared,  had  thought 
of  going  to  speak  to  Wakem  on  this  business  of  the 
mill ;  and  yet,  Mrs.  Tulliver  reflected,  it  would  have 
been  quite  the  shortest  method  of  securing  the 
right  end.  It  would  have  been  of  no  use,  to  be 
sure,  for  Mr.  Tulliver  to  go,  —  even  if  he  had  been 
able  and  willing,  —  for  he  had  been  "  going  to  law 
against  Wakem "  and  abusing  him  for  the  last  ten 
years;  Wakem  was  always  likely  to  have  a  spite 
against  him.  And  now  that  Mrs.  Tulliver  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  her  husband  was  very 
much  in  the  wrong  to  bring  her  into  this  trouble, 
she  was  inclined  to  think  that  his  opinion  of  Wakem 
was  wrong  too.  To  be  sure,  Wakem  had  "  put  the 
bailies  in  the  house,  and  sold  them  up;"  but  she 
supposed  he  did  that  to  please  the  man  that  lent 
Mr.  Tulliver  the  money,  for  a  lawyer  had  more 
folks  to  please  than  one,  and  he  wasn't  likely  to 
put  Mr.  Tulliver,  who  had  gone  to  law  with  him, 
above  everybody  else  in  the  world.  The  attorney 
might  be  a  very  reasonable  man, —  why  not?  He 
had  married  a  Miss  Clint,  and  at  the  time  Mrs. 
Tulliver  had  heard  of  that  marriage,  the  summer 
when  she  wore  her  blue  satin  spencer,  and  had 


THE  DOWNFALL.  349 

not  yet  any  thoughts  of  Mr.  Tulliver,  she  knew  no 
harm  of  Wakem.  And  certainly  towards  herself 
• —  whom  he  knew  to  have  been  a  Miss  Dodson 
—  it  was  out  of  all  possibility  that  he  could  en- 
tertain anything  but  good- will,  when  it  was  once 
brought  home  to  his  observation  that  she,  for  her 
part,  had  never  wanted  to  go  to  law,  and  indeed 
was  at  present  disposed  to  take  Mr.  Wakem's  view 
of  all  subjects  rather  than  her  husband's.  In  fact, 
if  that  attorney  saw  a  respectable  matron  like 
herself  disposed  "  to  give  him  good  words,"  why 
should  n't  he  .  listen  to  her  representations  ?  For 
she  would  put  the  matter  clearly  before  him,  which 
had  never  been  done  yet.  And  he  would  never  go 
and  bid  for  the  mill  on  purpose  to  spite  her,  an 
innocent  woman,  who  thought  it  likely  enough 
that  she  had  danced  with  him  in  their  youth  at 
Squire  Darleigh's,  for  at  those  big  dances  she  had 
often  and  often  danced  with  young  men  whose 
names  she  had  forgotten. 

Mrs.  Tulliver  hid  these  reasonings  in  her  own 
bosom ;  for  when  she  had  thrown  out  a  hint  to 
Mr.  Deane  and  Mr.  Glegg,  that  she  would  n't  mind 
going  to  speak  to  Wakem  herself,  they  had  said, 
"  No,  no,  no,"  and  "  Pooh,  pooh,"  and  "  Let  Wakem 
alone,"  in  the  tone  of  men  who  were  not  likely  to 
give  a  candid  attention  to  a  more  definite  expo- 
sition of  her  project;  still  less  dared  she  mention 
the  plan  to  Tom  and  Maggie,  for  "the  children 
were  always  so  against  everything  their  mother 
said ; "  and  Tom,  she  observed,  was  almost  as  much 
set  against  Wakem  as  his  father  was.  But  this 
unusual  concentration  of  thought  naturally  gave 
Mrs.  Tulliver  an  unusual  power  of  device  and  de- 
termination ;  and  a  day  or  two  before  the  sale,  to  be 


350  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

held  at  the  Golden  Lion,  when  there  was  no  longer 
any  time  to  be  lost,  she  carried  out  her  plan  by 
a  stratagem.  There  were  pickles  in  question,  —  a 
large  stock  of  pickles  and  ketchup  which  Mrs. 
Tulliver  possessed,  and  which  Mr.  Hyndmarsh  the 
grocer  would  certainly  purchase  if  she  could  trans- 
act the  business  in  a  personal  interview,  so  she 
would  walk  with  Tom  to  St.  Ogg's  that  morning : 
and  when  Tom  urged  that  she  might  let  the  pickles 
be. at  present  —  he  didn't  like  her  to  go  about  just 
yet,  —  she  appeared  so  hurt  at  this  conduct  in  her 
son,  contradicting  her  about  pickles  which  she  had 
made  after  the  family  receipts  inherited  from  his 
own  grandmother,  who  had  died  when  his  mother 
was  a  little  girl,  that  he  gave  way,  and  they  walked 
together  until  she  turned  towards  Danish  Street, 
where  Mr.  Hyndmarsh  retailed  his  grocery,  not  faj 
from  the  offices  of  Mr.  Wakem. 

That  gentleman  was  not  yet  come  to  his  office: 
would  Mrs.  Tulliver  sit  down  by  the  fire  in  his 
private  room  and  wait  for  him  ?  She -had  not  long 
to  wait  before  the  punctual  attorney  entered,  knit- 
ting his  brow  with  an  examining  glance  at  the  stout 
blond  woman  who  rose,  courtesying  deferent:ally  : 
a  tallish  man,  with  an  aquiline  nose  and  abumlnnt 
iron-gray  hair.  You  have  never  seen  Mr.  Wakem  be- 
fore, and  are  possibly  wondering  whether  he  was 
really  as  eminent  a  rascal,  and  as  crafty,  bitter  an 
enemy  of  honest  humanity  in  general,  and  of  Mr. 
Tulliver  in  particular,  as  he  is  represented  to  be  in 
that  eidolon  or  portrait  of  him  which  we  have  seen 
to  exist  in  the  miller's  mind. 

It  is  clear  that  the  irascible  miller  was  a  man  to 
interpret  any  chance-shot  that  grazed  him  as  an 
attempt  on  his  own  life,  and  was  liable  to  entangle- 


THE  DOWNFALL.  351 

ments  in  this  puzzling  world,  which,  due  consid- 
eration had  to  his  own  infallibility,  required  the 
hypothesis '  of  a  very  active  diabolical  agency  to 
explain  them.  It  is  still  possible  to  believe  that 
the  attorney  was  not  more  guilty  towards  him  than 
an  ingenious  machine,  which  performs  its  work  with 
much  regularity,  is  guilty  towards  the  rash  man 
who,  venturing  too  near  it,  is  caught  up  by  some 
fly-wheel  or  other,  and  suddenly  converted  into 
unexpected  mince-meat. 

But  it  is  really  impossible  to  decide  this  question 
by  a  glance  at  his  person  :  the  lines  and  lights  of 
the  human  countenance  are  like  other  symbols, — • 
not  always  easy  to  read  witbout  a  key.  On  an 
a  priori  view  of  Wakem's  aquiline  nose,  which  of- 
fended Mr.  Tulliver,  there  was  not  more  rascality 
than  in  the  shape  of  his  stiff  shirt-collar,  though 
this  too,  along  with  his  nose,  might  have  become 
fraught  with  damnatory  meaning  when  once  the 
rascality  was  ascertained. 

"  Mrs.  Tulliver,  I  think  ?  "  said  Mr.  Wakem. 

"  Yes,  sir.     Miss  Elizabeth  Dodson  as  was." 

"  Pray  be  seated.  You  have  some  business  with 
me?" 

"  Well,  sir,  yes,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  beginning  to 
feel  alarmed  at  her  own  courage,  now  she  was  really 
in  presence  of  the  formidable  man,  and  reflecting 
that  she  had  not  settled  with  herself  how  she 
should  begin.  Mr.  Wakem  felt  in  his  waistcoat- 
pockets,  and  looked  at  her  in  silence. 

" I  hope,  sir,"  she  began  at  last,  —  "I  hope,  sir, 
you  're  not  a-thinking  as  /  bear  you  any  ill-will 
because  o'  my  husband's  losing  his  lawsuit,  and  the 
bailies  being  put  in,  and  the  linen  being  sold  —  oh 
dear !  ...  for  I  was  n't  brought  up  in  that  way. 


352  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

I  'm  sure  you  remember  my  father,  sir,  for  he  was 
close  friends  with  Squire  Darleigh,  and  we  allays 
went  to  the  dances  there  —  the  Miss  Dodsons  — 
nobody  could  be  more  looked  on  —  and  justly,  for 
there  was  four  of  us,  and  you  're  quite  aware  as 
Mrs.  Glegg  and  Mrs.  Deane  are  my  sisters.  And 
as  for  going  to  law  and  losing  money,  and  having 
sales  before  you  're  dead,  I  never  saw  anything  o' 
that  before  I  was  married,  nor  for  a  long  while  after. 
And  I  'm  not  to  be  answerable  for  my  bad  luck  i' 
marrying  out  o'  my  own  family  into  one  where 
the  goings-on  was  different.  And  as  for  being 
drawn  in  t'  abuse  you  as  other  folks  abuse  you,  sir, 
that  I  niver  was,  and  nobody  can  say  it  of  me." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  shook  her  head  a  little,  and  looked 
at  the  hem  of  her  pocket-handkerchief. 

"  I  've  no  doubt  of  what  you  say,  Mrs.  Tulliver," 
said  Mr.  Wakem,  with  cold  politeness.  "  But  you 
have  some  question  to  ask  me  ? " 

"  Well,  sir,  yes.  But  that 's  what  I  've  said  to 
myself, —  I  Ve  said  you  'd  had  some  nat'ral  feeling  ; 
and  as  for  my  husband,  as  has  n't  been  himself  for 
this  two  months,  I'm  not  a-defending  him  in  no 
way  for  being  so  hot  about  th'  erigation — not 
but  what  there 's  worse  men,  for  he  never  wronged 
nobody  of  a  shilling  nor  a  penny,  not  willingly  — 
and  as  for  his  fieriness  and  lawing,  what  could  I 
do  ?  And  him  struck  as  if  it  was  with  death  when 
he  got  the  letter  as  said  you  'd  the  hold  upo'  the 
land.  But  I  can't  believe  but  what  you  11  behave 
as  a  gentleman." 

"  What  does  all  this  mean,  Mrs.  Tulliver  ? "  said 
Mr.  Wakem,  rather  sharply.  "  What  do  you  want 
to  ask  me  ? " 

"  Why,  sir,  if  you  '11  be  so  good,"  said  Mrs.  Tul- 


Mrs.  TulUver  and  Mr.  Wakem. 
Original  Etching  by  C.  O.  Murray. 


THE  DOWNFALL.  353 

liver,  starting  a  little,  arid  speaking  more  hurriedly, 
"  if  you  '11  be  so  good  not  to  buy  the  mill  an'  the 
land, —  the  land  would  n't  so  much  matter,  only 
my  husband  'ull  be  like  mad  at  your  having  it." 

Something  like  a  new  thought  flashed  across  Mr. 
Wakem's  face  as  he  said,  "  Who  told  you  I  meant 
to  buy  it  ? " 

"  Why,  sir,  it 's  none  o'  my  inventing,  and  I  should 
never  ha' thought  of  it;  for  my  husband,  as  ought 
to  know  about  the  law,  he  allays  used  to  say  as 
lawyers  had  never  no  call  to  buy  anything, —  either 
lands  or  houses,  —  for  they  allays  got  'em  into  their 
hands  other  ways.  An'  I  should  think  that  'ud  be 
the  way  with  you,  sir ;  and  I  niver  said  as  you  'd 
be  the  man  to  do  contrairy  to  that." 

"Ah,  well,  who  was  it  that  did  say  so?"  said 
Wakem,  opening  his  desk,  and  moving  things  about, 
with  the  accompaniment  of  an  almost  inaudible 
whistle. 

"  Why,  sir,  it  was  Mr.  Glegg  and  Mr.  Deane,  as 
have  all  the  management;  and  Mr.  Deane  thinks 
as  Guest  &  Co.  'ud  buy  the  mill  and  let  Mr.  Tul- 
liver  work  it  for  'em,  if  you  did  n't  bid  for  it  and 
raise  the  price.  And  it  'ud  be  such  a  thing  for  my 
husband  to  stay  where  he  is,  if  he  could  get  his 
living :  for  it  was  his  father's  before  him,  the  mill 
was,  and  his  grandfather  built  it,  though  I  was  n't 
fond  o'  the  noise  of  it,  when  first  I  was  married, 
for  there  was  no  mills  in  our  family  —  not  the 
Dodsons'  —  and  if  I 'd  known  as  the  mills  had  so 
much  to  do  with  the  law,  it  would  n't  have  been  me 
as  'ud  have  been  the  first  Dodson  to  marry  one ;  but 
I  went  into  it  blindfold,  that  I  did,  erigation  and 
everything." 

"  What !   Guest  &  Co.  would  keep  the  mill  in 

VOL.  i.  —  23 


354  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

their  own  hands,  I  suppose,  and  pay  your  husband 
wages  ? " 

"  Oh  dear,  sir,  it 's  hard  to  think  of,"  said  poor 
Mrs.  Tulliver,  a  little  tear  making  its  way,  "  as  my 
husband  should  take  wage.  But  it  'ud  look  more 
like  what  used  to  be,  to  stay  at  the  mill  than  to  go 
anywhere  else ;  and  if  you  '11  only  think  —  if  you 
was  to  bid  for  the  mill  and  buy  it,  my  husband 
might  be  struck  worse  than  he  was  before,  and 
niver  get  better  again  as  he's  getting  now." 

"  Well,  but  if  I  bought  the  mill,  and  allowed 
your  husband  to  act  as  my  manager  in  the  same 
way,  how  then  ? "  said  Mr.  Wakem. 

"  Oh,  sir,  I  doubt  he  could  niver  be  got  to  do  it, 
not  if  the  very  mill  stood  still  to  beg  and  pray  of 
him.  For  your  name  's  like  poison  to  him,  it 's  so 
as  never  was ;  and  he  looks  upon  it  as  you  've  been 
the  ruin  of  him  all  along,  ever  since  you  set  the  law 
on  him  about  the  road  through  the  meadow  — 
that 's  eight  year  ago,  and  he  's  been  going  on  ever 
since  —  as  I  Ve  allays  told  him  he  was  wrong  — " 

"  He  's  a  pig-headed,  foul-mouthed  fool ! "  bursf 
out  Mr.  Wakem,  forgetting  himself. 

"  Oh  dear,  sir !  "  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  frightened  at 
a  result  so  different  from  the  one  she  had  fixed  her 
mind  on ;  "I  would  n't  wish  to  contradict  you,  but 
it 's  like  enough  he  's  changed  h'is  mind  with  this 
illness,  —  he  's  forgot  a  many  things  he  used  to  talk 
about.  And  you  would  n't  like  to  have  a  corpse  on 
your  mind,  if  he  was  to  die ;  and  they  do  say  as  it 's 
allays  unlucky  when  Dorlcote  Mill  changes  hands, 
and  the  water  might  all  run  away,  and  then  .  .  .  not 
as  I  'm  wishing  you  any  ill-luck,  sir,  for  I  forgot  to 
tell  you  as  I  remember  your  wedding  as  if  it  was 
yesterday  —  Mrs.  Wakem  was  a  Miss  Clint,  I  know 


THE  DOWNFALL.  355 

that  —  and  my  boy,  as  there  is  n't  a  nicer,  hand- 
somer, straighter  boy  nowhere,  went  to  school  with 
your  son  —  " 

Mr.  Wakem  rose,  opened  the  door,  and  called  to 
one  of  his  clerks. 

"  You  must  excuse  me  for  interrupting  you,  Mrs. 
Tulliver ;  I  have  business  that  must  be  attended 
to ;  and  I  think  there  is  nothing  more  necessary  to 
be  said." 

"  But  if  you  would  bear  it  in  mind,  sir,"  said  Mrs. 
Tulliver,  rising,  "  and  not  run  against  me  and  my 
children ;  and  I  'm  not  denying  Mr.  Tulliver  's  been 
in  the  wrong,  but  he  's  been  punished  enough,  and 
there  's  worse  men,  for  it  's  been  giving  to  other 
folks  has  been  his  fault.  He  's  done  nobody  any 
harm  but  himself  and  his  family,  —  the  more  's  the 
pity,  —  and  I  go  and  look  at  the  bare  shelves  every 
day,  and  think  where  all  my  things  used  to  stand." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  '11  bear  it  in  mind,"  said  Mr.  Wakem, 
hastily,  looking  towards  the  open  door. 

"  And  if  you  'd  please  not  to  say  as  I  Ve  been  to 
speak  to  you,  for  my  son  'ud  be  very  angry  with 
me  for  demeaning  myself,  I  know  he  would,  and 
I  Ve  trouble  enough  without  being  scolded  by  my 
children." 

Poor  Mrs.  Tulliver's  voice  trembled  a  little,  and 
she  could  make  no  answer  to  the  attorney's  "  good- 
morning,"  but  courtesied  and  walked  out  in  silence. 

"Which  day  is  it  that  Dorlcote  Mill  is  to  be 
sold  ?  Where  's  the  bill  ? "  said  Mr.  Wakem  to  his 
clerk  when  they  were  alone. 

"  Next  Friday  is  the  day  :  Friday  at  six  o'clock." 

"  Oh,  just  run  to  Winship's  the  auctioneer,  and 
see  if  he 's  at  home.  I  have  some  business  for  him: 
ask  him  to  come  up." 


356  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Although,  when  Mr.  Wakem  entered  his  office 
that  morning,  he  had  had  no  intention  of  purchas- 
ing Dorlcote  Mill,  his  mind  was  already  made  up : 
Mrs.  Tulliver  had  suggested  to  him  several  deter- 
mining motives,  and  his  mental  glance  was  very 
rapid :  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  can  be  prompt 
without  being  rash,  because  their  motives  run  in 
fixed  tracks,  and  they  have  no  need  to  reconcile 
conflicting  aims. 

To  suppose  that  Wakem  had  the  same  sort  of 
inveterate  hatred  towards  Tulliver  that  Tulliver 
had  towards  him,  would  be  like  supposing  that  a 
pike  and  a  roach  can  look  at  each  other  from  a 
similar  point  of  view.  The  roach  necessarily  ab- 
hors the  mode  in  which  the  pike  gets  his  living, 
and  the  pike  is  likely  to  think  nothing  further  even 
of  the  most  indignant  roach  than  that  he  is  ex- 
cellent good  eating ;  it  could  only  be  when  the 
roach  choked  him  that  the  pil^e  could  entertain  a 
strong  personal  animosity.  If  Mr.  Tulliver  had 
ever  seriously  injured  or  thwarted  the  attorney, 
Wakem  would  not  have  refused  him  the  distinction 
of  being  a  special  object  of  his  vindictiveness.  But 
when  Mr.  Tulliver  called  Wakem  a  rascal  at  the 
market  dinner-table,  the  attorney's  clients  were  not 
a  whit  inclined  to  withdraw  their  business  from 
him ;  and  if,  when  Wakem  himself  happened  to  be 
present,  some  jocose  cattle-feeder,  stimulated  by 
opportunity  and  brandy,  made  a  thrust  at  him  by 
alluding  to  old  ladies'  wills,  he  maintained  perfect 
sang  froid,  and  knew  quite  well  that  the  majority 
of  substantial  men  then  present  were  perfectly  con- 
tented with  the  fact  that  "  Wakem  was  Wakem  ; " 
that  is  to  say,  a  man  who  always  knew  the  step- 
ping-stones that  would  carry  him  through  very 


THE  DOWNFALL.  357 

muddy  bits  of  practice.  A  man  who  had  made  a 
large  fortune,  had  a  handsome  house  among  the 
trees  at  Tofton,  and  decidedly  the  finest  stock  of 
port-wine  in  the  neighbourhood  of  St.  Ogg's,  was 
likely  to  feel  himself  on  a  level  with  public  opinion. 
And  I  am  not  sure  that  even  honest  Mr.  Tulliver 
himself,  with  his  general  view  of  law  as  a  cockpit, 
might  not,  under  opposite  circumstances,  have  seen 
a  fine  appropriateness  in  the  truth  that  "  Wakem 
was  Wakem ; "  since  I  have  understood  from  per- 
sons versed  in  history,  that  mankind  is  not  dis- 
posed to  look  narrowly  into  the  conduct  of  great 
victors  when  their  victory  is  on  the  right  side. 
Tulliver,  then,  could  be  no  obstruction  to  Wakem ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  was  a  poor  devil  whom  the  law- 
yer had  defeated  several  times,  —  a  hot-tempered 
fellow,  who  would  always  give  you  a  handle  against 
him.  Wakem's  conscience  was  not  uneasy  because 
he  had  used  a  few  tricks  against  the  miller :  why 
should  he  hate  that  unsuccessful  plaintiff,  —  that 
pitiable,  furious  bull  entangled  in  the  meshes  of 
a  net? 

Still,  among  the  various  excesses  to  which 
human  nature  is  subject,  moralists  have  never 
numbered  that  of  being  too  fond  of  the  people  who 
openly  revile  us.  The  successful  Yellow  candidate 
for  the  borough  of  Old  Topping,  perhaps,  feels  no 
pursuant  meditative  hatred  toward  the  Blue  editor 
who  consoles  his  subscribers  with  vituperative  rhe- 
toric against  Yellow  men  who  sell  their  country, 
and  are  the  demons  of  private  life ;  but  he  might 
not  be  sorry,  if  law  and  opportunity  favoured,  to 
kick  that  Blue  editor  to  a  deeper  shade  of  his  favour- 
ite colour.  Prosperous  men  take  a  little  vengeance 
now  and  then,  as  they  take  a  diversion,  when  it 


358  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

comes  easily  in  their  way,  and  is  no  hindrance  to 
business  ;  and  such  small  unimpassioned  revenges 
have  an  enormous  effect  in  life,  running  through 
all  degrees  of  pleasant  infliction,  blocking  the  fit 
men  out  of  places,  and  blackening  characters  in 
unpremeditated  talk.  Still  more,  to  see  people  who 
have  been  only  insignificantly  offensive  to  us,  re- 
duced in  life  and  humiliated  without  any  special 
efforts  of  ours,  is  apt  to  have  a  soothing,  flattering 
influence :  Providence,  or  some  other  prince  of  this 
world,  it  appears,  has  undertaken  the  task  of  ret- 
ribution for  us  ;  and  really,  by  an  agreeable  constitu- 
tion of  things,  our-  enemies  somehow  don't  prosper. 
Wakem  was  not  without  this  parenthetic  vindic- 
tiveness  towards  the  uncomplimentary  miller ;  and 
now  Mrs.  Tulliver  had  put  the  notion  into  his  head, 
it  presented  itself  to  him  as  a  pleasure  to  do  the 
very  thing  that  would  cause  Mr.  Tulliver  the  most 
deadly  mortification,  —  and  a  pleasure  of  a  complex 
kind,  not  made  up  of  crude  malice,  but  mingling 
with  it  the  relish  of  self-approbation.  To  see 
an  enemy  humiliated  gives  a  certain  contentment, 
but  this  is  jejune  compared  with  the  highly  blent 
satisfaction  of  seeing  him  humiliated  by  your  benevo- 
lent action  or  concession  on  his  behalf.  That  is  a 
sort  of  revenge  which  falls  into  the  scale  of  virtue, 
and  Wakem  was  not  without  an  intention  of  keeping 
that  scale  respectably  filled.  He  had  once  had  the 
pleasure  of  putting  an  old  enemy  of  his  into  one  of 
the  St.  Ogg's  almshouses,  to  the  rebuilding  of  which 
he  had  given  a  large  subscription  ;  and  here  was  an 
opportunity  of  providing  for  another  by  making  him 
his  own  servant.  Such  things  give  a  completeness 
to  prosperity,  and  contribute  elements  of  agreeable 
consciousness  that  are  not  dreamed  of  by  that  short- 


THE  DOWNFALL.  359 

sighted,  over-heated  vindictiveness,  which  goes  out 
of  its  way  to  wreak  itself  in  direct  injury.  And 
Tulliver,  with  his  rough  tongue  filed  by  a  sense  of 
obligation,  would  make  a  better  servant  than  any 
chance-fellow  who  was  cap-in-hand  for  a  situation. 
Tulliver  was  known  to  be  a  man  of  proud  honesty, 
and  Wakem  was  too  acute  not  to  believe  in  the  ex- 
istence of  honesty.  He  was  given  to  observing  indi- 
viduals, not  to  judging  of  them  according  to  maxims, 
and  no  one  knew  better  than  he  that  all  men  were 
not  like  himself.  Besides,  he  intended  to  overlook 
the  whole  business  of  land  and  mill  pretty  closely: 
he  was  fond  of  these  practical  rural  matters.  But 
there  were  good  reasons  for  purchasing  Dorlcote 
Mill,  quite  apart  from  any  benevolent  vengeance  on 
the  miller.  It  was  really  a  capital  investment; 
besides,  Guest  &  Co.  were  going  to  bid  for  it.  Mr. 
Guest  and  Mr.  Wakem  were  on  friendly  dining 
terms,  and  the  attorney  liked  to  predominate  over  a 
ship-owner  and  mill-owner  who  was  a  little  too  loud 
in  the  town  affairs  as  well  as  in  his  table-talk.  For 
Wakem  was  not  a  mere  man  of  business :  he  was 
considered  a  pleasant  fellow  in  the  upper  circles  of 
St.  Ogg's,  —  chatted  amusingly  over  his  port-wine, 
did  a  little  amateur  farming,  and  had  certainly  been 
an  excellent  husband  and  father:  at  church,  when 
he  went  there,  he  sat  under  the  handsomest  of  mural 
monuments  erected  to  the  memory  of  his  wife. 
Most  men  would  have  married  again  under  his  cir- 
cumstances, but  he  was  said  to  be  more  tender  to 
his  deformed  son  than  most  men  were  to  their  best- 
shapen  offspring.  Not  that  Mr.  Wakem  had  not 
other  sons  besides  Philip  ;  but  towards  them  he  held 
only  a  chiaroscuro  parentage,  and  provided  for  them 
in  a  grade  of  life  duly  beneath  his  own.  In  this 


3<5o  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

fact,  indeed,  there  lay  the  clenching  motive  to  the 
purchase  of  Dorlcote  Mill.  While  Mrs.  Tulliver  was 
talking,  it  had  occurred  to  the  rapid-minded  lawyer, 
among  all  the  other  circumstances  of  the  case,  that 
this  purchase  would,  in  a  few  years  to  come,  furnish 
a  highly  suitable  position  for  a  certain  favourite  lad 
whom  he  meant  to  bring  on  in  the  world^. 

These  were  the  mental  conditions  on  which  Mrs. 
Tulliver  had  undertaken  to  act  persuasively,  and 
had  failed :  a  fact  which  may  receive  some  illustra- 
tion from  the  remark  of  a  great  philosopher,  that 
fly-fishers  fail  in  preparing  their  bait  so  as  to  make 
it  alluring  in  the  right  quarter,  for  want  of  a  due 
acquaintance  with  the  subjectivity  of  fishes. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

DAYLIGHT   ON   THE   WRECK. 

IT  was  a  clear  frosty  January  day  on  which  Mr. 
Tulliver  first  came  downstairs :  the  bright  sun  on 
the  chestnut  boughs  and  the  roofs  opposite  his 
window  had  made  him  impatiently  declare  that  he 
would  be  caged  up  no  longer:  he  thought  every- 
where would  be  more  cheery  under  this  sunshine 
than  his  bedroom ;  for  he  knew  nothing  of  the  bare- 
ness below,  which  made  the  Hood  of  sunshine  im- 
portunate, as  if  it  had  an  unfeeling  pleasure  in 
showing  the  empty  places,  and  the  marks  where 
well-known  objects  once  had  been.  The  impres- 
sion on  his  mind  that  it  was  but  yesterday  when 
he  received  the  letter  from  Mr.  Gore  was  so 
continually  implied  in  his  talk,  and  the  attempts 
to  convey  to  him  the  idea  that  many  weeks  had 
passed  and  much  had  happened  since  then,  had 
been  so  soon  swept  away  by  recurrent  forgetfulness, 
that  even  Mr.  Turnbull  had  begun  to  despair  of 
preparing  him  to  meet  the  facts  by  previous  knowl- 
edge. The  full  sense  of  the  present  could  only  be 
imparted  gradually  by  new  experience,  —  n'ot  by 
mere  words,  which  must  remain  weaker  than  the 
impressions  left  by  the  old  experience.  This  reso- 
lution to  come  downstairs  was  heard  with  trembling 
by  the  wife  and  children.  Mrs.  Tulliver  said  Tom 
must  not  go  to  St.  Ogg's  at  the  usual  hour,  —  he 
must  wait  and  see  his  father  downstairs ;  and  Tom 


362  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

complied,  though  with  an  intense  inward  shrinking 
from  tha  painful  scene.  The  hearts  of  all  three  had 
been  more  deeply  dejected  than  ever  during  the  last 
few  days.  For  Guest  &  Co.  had  not  bought  the 
mill :  both  mill  and  land  had  been  knocked  down 
to  Wakem,  who  had  been  over  the  premises,  and 
had  laid  before  Mr.  Deane  and  Mr.  Glegg,  in  Mrs. 
Tulliver's  presence,  his  willingness  to  employ  Mr. 
Tulliver,  in  case  of  his  recovery,  as  a  manager  of 
the  business.  This  proposition  had  occasioned  much 
family  debating.  Uncles  and  aunts  were  almost 
unanimously  of  opinion  that  such  an  offer  ought  not 
to  be  rejected  when  there  was  nothing  in  the  way 
but  a  feeling  in  Mr.  Tulliver's  mind,  which,  as 
neither  aunts  nor  uncl3s  shared  it,  was  regarded  as 
entirely  unreasonable  and  childish,  —  indeed,  as  a 
transferring  towards  Wakem  of  that  indignation 
and  hatred  which  Mr.  Tulliver  ought  properly  to 
have  directed  against  himself  for  his  general  quarrel- 
someness, and  his  special  exhibition  of  it  in  going 
to  law.  Here  was  an  opportunity  for  Mr.  Tulliver 
to  provide  for  his  wife  and  daughter  without  any 
assistance  from  his  wife's  relations,  and  without  that 
too  evident  descent  into  pauperism  which  makes  it 
annoying  to  respectable  people  to  meet  the  degraded 
member  of  the  family  by  the  wayside.  Mr.  Tul- 
liver, Mrs.  Glegg  considered,  must  be  made  to  feel, 
when  he  came  to  his  right  mind,  that  he  could  never 
humble  himself  enough ;  for  that  had  come  which 
she  had  always  foreseen  would  come  of  his  insolence 
in  time  past  "  to  them  as  were  the  best  friends  he  'd 
got  to  look  to."  Mr.  Glegg  and  Mr.  Deane  were 
less  stern  in  their  views,  but  they  both  of  them 
thought  Tulliver  had  done  enough  harm  by  his 
hot-tempered  crotchets,  and  ought  to  put  them  out 


THE  DOWNFALL.  363 

of  the  question  when  a  livelihood  was  offered  him : 
Wakem  showed  a  right  feeling  about  the  matter,  — 
he  had  no  grudge  against  Tulliver.  Tom  had  pro- 
tested against  entertaining  the  proposition :  he 
should  n't  like  his  father  to  be  under  Wakem ; 
he  thought  it  would  look  mean-spirited;  but  his 
mother's  main  distress  was  the  utter  impossibility 
of  ever  "turning  Mr.  Tulliver  round  about  Wakem," 
or  getting  him  to  hear  reason,  —  no,  they  would  all 
have  to  go  and  live  in  a  pigsty  on  purpose  to  spite 
Wakem,  who  spoke  "so  as  nobody  could  be  fairer." 
Indeed,  Mrs.  Tulliver's  mind  was  reduced  to  such 
confusion  by  living  in  this  strange  medium  of  un- 
accountable sorrow,  against  which  she  continually 
appealed  by  asking,  "  Oh  dear,  what  have  I  done  to 
deserve  worse  than  other  women  ? "  that  Maggie 
began  to  suspect  her  poor  mother's  wits  were  quite 
going. 

"  Tom,"  she  said,  when  they  were  out  of  their 
father's  room  together,  "we  must  try  to  make  fa- 
ther understand  a  little  of  what  has  happened  before 
he  goes  downstairs.  But  we  must  get  my  mother 
away.  She  will  say  something  that  will  do  harm. 
Ask  Kezia  to  fetch  her  down,  and  keep  her  engaged 
with  something  in  the  kitchen." 

Kezia  was  equal  to  the  task.  Having  declared 
her  intention  of  staying  till  the  master  could  get 
about  again,  "  wage  or  no  wage,"  she  had  found  a 
certain  recompense  in  keeping  a  strong  hand  over 
her  mistress,  scolding  her  for  "  moithering  "  herself, 
and  going  about  all  day  without  changing  her  cap, 
and  looking  as  if  she  was  "  mushed."  Altogether, 
this  time  of  trouble  was  rather  a  Saturnalian  time 
to  Kezia :  she  could  scold  her  betters  with  unre- 
proved  freedom.  On  this  particular  occasion  there 


364  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

were  drying  clothes  to  be  fetched  in  :  she  wished  to 
know  if  one  pair  of  hands  could  do  everything  in- 
doors and  out,  and  observed  that  she  should  have 
thought  it  would  be  good  for  Mrs.  Tulliver  to  put 
on  her  bonnet,  and  get  a  breath  of  fresh  air  by  doing 
that  needful  piece  of  work.  Poor  Mrs.  Tulliver  went 
submissively  downstairs :  to  be  ordered  about  by  a 
servant  was  the  last  remnant  of  her  household  dig- 
nities, —  she  would  soon  have  no  servant  to  scold 
her.  Mr.  Tulliver  was  resting  in  his  chair  a  little 
after  the  fatigue  of  dressing,  and  Maggie  and  Tom 
were  seated  near  him,  when  Luke  entered  to  ask  if 
he  should  help  master  downstairs. 

"  Ay,  ay,  Luke,  stop  a  bit,  sit  down,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver,  pointing  his  stick  towards  a  chair,  and 
looking  at  him  with  that  pursuant  gaze  which  con- 
valescent persons  often  have  for  those  who  have 
tended  them,  reminding  one  of  an  infant  gazing 
about  after  its  nurse.  For  Luke  had  been  a  con- 
stant night-watcher  by  his  master's  bed. 

"  How  's  the  water  now,  eh,  Luke  ? "  said  Mr.  Tul- 
liver. "  Dix  has  n't  been  choking  you  up  again,  eh  ? " 

"  No,  sir,  it 's  all  right." 

"Ay,  I  thought  not:  he  won't  be  in  a  hurry  at 
that  again,  now  Eiley  's  been  to  settle  him.  That 
was  what  I  said  to  Riley  yesterday  ...  I  said  — 

Mr.  Tulliver  leaned  forward,  resting  his  elbows 
on  the  arm-chair,  and  looking  on  the  ground  as  if 
in  search  of  something,  —  striving  after  vanishing 
images  like  a  man  struggling  against  a  doze.  Maggie 
looked  at  Tom  in  mute  distress,  —  their  father's 
mind  was  so  far  off  the  present,  which  would  by 
and  by  thrust  itself  on  his  wandering  consciousness ! 
Tom  was  almost  ready  to  rush  away,  with  that 
impatience  of  painful  emotion  which  makes  one  of 


THE  DOWNFALL.  365 

the  differences  between  youth  and  maiden,  man 
and  woman. 

"  Father,"  said  Maggie,  laying  her  hand  on  his, 
"  don't  you  remember  that  Mr.  Riley  is  dead  ? " 

"  Dead  ? "  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  sharply,  looking  in 
her  face  with  a  strange,  examining  glance. 

"  Yes,  he  died  of  apoplexy  nearly  a  year  ago ;  I 
remember  hearing  you  say  you  had  to  pay  money 
for  him ;  and  he  left  his  daughters  badly  off,  —  one 
of  them  is  under-teacher  at  Miss  Firniss's,  where 
I  Ve  been  to  school,  you  know  —  " 

"  Ah  ? "  said  her  father,  doubtfully,  still  looking 
in  her  face.  But  as  soon  as  Tom  began  to  speak, 
he  turned  to  look  at  him  with  the  same  inquiring 
glances,  as  if  he  were  rather  surprised  at  the  pres- 
ence of  these  two  young  people.  Whenever  his  mind 
was  wandering  in  the  far  past,  he  fell  into  this 
oblivion  of  their  actual  faces :  they  were  not  those 
of  the  lad  and  the  little  wench  who  belonged  to 
that  past. 

"  It 's  a  long  while  since  you  had  the  dispute  with 
Dix,  father,"  said  Tom.  "  I  remember  your  talking 
about  it  three  years  ago,  before  I  went  to  school  at 
Mr.  Stelling's.  I  've  been  at  school  there  three 
years ;  don't  you  remember  ? " 

Mr.  Tulliver  threw  himself  backward  again,  los- 
ing the  childlike  outward  glance  under  a  rush 
of  new  ideas,  which  diverted  him  from  external 
impressions. 

"  Ay,  ay,"  he  said,  after  a  minute  or  two,  "  I  Ve 
paid  a  deal  o'  money  ...  I  was  determined  my  son 
should  have  a  good  eddication  :  I  'd  none  myself, 
and  I  Ve  felt  the  miss  of  it.  And  he  '11  want  no 
other  fortin  :  that 's  what  I  say  ...  if  Wakem  was 
to  get  the  better  of  me  again  —  " 


366  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

The  thought  of  Wakera  roused  new  vibrations, 
and  after  a  moment's  pause  he  began  to  look  at  the 
coat  he  had  on,  and  to  feel  in  his  side-pocket.  Then 
he  turned  to  Tom,  and  said,  in  his  old  sharp  way, 
"  Where  have  they  put  Gore's  letter  ? " 

It  was  close  at  hand  in  a  drawer,  for  he  had  often 
asked  for  it  before. 

"  You  know  what  there  is  in  the  letter,  father  ? " 
said  Tom,  as  he  gave  it  to  him. 

"  To  be  sure  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  rather 
angrily.  "  What  o'  that  ?  If  Furley  can't  take  to 
the  property,  somebody  else  can :  there  's  plenty  o' 
people  in  the  world  besides  Furley.  But  it 's  hin- 
dering, —  my  not  being  well,  —  go  and  tell  'em  to 
get  the  horse  in  the  gig,  Luke :  I  can  get  down  to 
St.  Ogg's  well  enough,  —  Gore  's  expecting  me." 

"  No,  dear  father !  "  Maggie  burst  out  entreatingly, 
"  it 's  a  very  long  while  since  all  that :  you  've  been 
ill  a  great  many  weeks,  —  more  than  two  months,  — 
everything  is  changed." 

Mr.  Tulliver  looked  at  them  all  three  alternately 
with  a  startled  gaze :  the  idea  that  much  had  hap- 
pened of  which  he  knew  nothing  had  often  tran- 
siently arrested  him  before,  but  it  came  upon  him 
now  with  entire  novelty. 

"  Yes,  father,"  said  Tom,  in  answer  to  the  gaze. 
"  You  need  n't  trouble  your  mind  about  business 
until  you  are  quite  well :  everything  is  settled  about 
that  for  the  present,  —  about  the  mill  and  the  land 
and  the  debts." 

"  What 's  settled,  then  ? "  said  his  father,  angrily. 

"  Don't  you  take  on  too  much  about  it,  sir,"  said 
Luke.  "  You  'd  ha'  paid  i  very  body  if  you  could,  — 
that 's  what  I  said  to  Master  Tom,  —  I  said  you  'd 
ha'  paid  iverybody  if  you  could." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  367 

Good  Luke  felt,  after  the  manner  of  contented 
hard-working  men  whose  lives  have  been  spent  in 
servitude,  that  sense  of  natural  fitness  in  rank  which 
made  his  master's  downfall  a  tragedy  to  him.  He 
was  urged,  in  his  slow  way,  to  say  something  that 
would  express  his  share  in  the  family  sorrow ;  and 
these  words,  which  he  had  used  over  and  over  again 
to  Tom  when  he  wanted  to  decline  the  full  payment 
of  his  fifty  pounds  out  of  the  children's  money,  were 
the  most  ready  to  his  tongue.  They  were  just  the 
words  to  lay  the  most  painful  hold  on  his  master's 
bewildered  mind. 

"  Paid  everybody  ? "  he  said,  with  vehement  agi- 
tation, his  face  flushing,  and  his  eye  lighting 
up.  "Why  .  .  .  what  .  .  .  have  they  made  me  a 
bankrupt  ?  " 

"Oh,  father,  dear  father!"  said  Maggie,  who 
thought  that  terrible  word  really  represented  the 
fact,  "  bear  it  well  —  because  we  love  you  —  your 
children  will  always  love  you.  Tom  will  pay 
them  all ;  he  says  he  will,  when  he  's  a  man." 

She  felt  her  father  beginning  to  tremble ;  his  voice 
trembled,  too,  as  he  said  after  a  few  moments,  — 

"  Ay,  my  little  wench,  but  I  shall  never  live  twice 
o'er." 

"  But  perhaps  you  will  live  to  see  me  pay  every- 
body, father,"  said  Tom,  speaking  with  a  great 
effort. 

"Ah,  my  lad,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  shaking  his 
head  slowly,  "but  what's  broke  can  never  be  whole 
again  ;  it  'ud  be  your  doing,  not  mine."  Then  looking 
up  at  him,  "You're  only  sixteen — it's  an  up-hill 
fight  for  you  —  but  you  must  n't  throw  it  at  your 
father;  the  raskills  have  been  too  many  for  him. 
I  've  given  you  a  good  eddication,  —  that  '11  start 
you." 


368  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

Something  in  his  throat  half  choked  the  last 
words ;  the  flush  which  had  alarmed  his  children 
because  it  had  so  often  preceded  a  recurrence  of 
paralysis,  had  subsided,  and  his  face  looked  pale 
and  tremulous.  Tom  said  nothing:  he  was  still 
struggling  against  his  inclination  to  rush  away. 
His  father  remained  quiet  a  minute  or  two,  but  his 
mind  did  not  seem  to  be  wandering  again. 

"  Have  they  sold  me  up,  then  ? "  he  said,  more 
calmly,  as  if  he  were  possessed  simply  by  the  desire 
to  know  what  had  happened. 

"  Everything  is  sold,  father ;  but  we  don't  know 
all  about  the  mill  and  the  land  yet,"  said  Tom, 
anxious  to  ward  off  any  question  leading  to  the 
fact  that  Wakem  was  the  purchaser. 

"  You  must  not  be  surprised  to  see  the  room  look 
very  bare  downstairs,  father,"  said  Maggie ;  "  but 
there 's  your  chair  and  the  bureau,  —  they  're  not 
gone." 

"  Let  us  go  —  help  me  down,  Luke  —  I  '11  go  and 
see  everything,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  leaning  on  his 
stick,  and  stretching  out  his  other  hand  towards 
Luke. 

"  Ay,  sir,"  said  Luke,  as  he  gave  his  arm  to  his 
master,  "  you  '11  make  up  your  mind  to  't  a  bit  better 
when  you  've  seen  iverything :  you  '11  get  used  to 't. 
That 's  what  my  mother  says  about  her  shortness  o' 
breath,  —  she  says  she 's  made  friends  wi't  now, 
though  she  fought  again'  it  sore  when  it  fust  come 
on." 

Maggie  ran  on  bafore  to  see  that  all  was  right  in 
the  dreary  parlour,  where  the  h're, dulled  by  the  frosty 
sunshine,  seemed  part  of  the  general  shabbiness.  She 
turned  her  father's  chair,  and  pushed  aside  the  table 
to  make  an  easy  way  for  him,  and  then  stood  with 


THE  DOWNFALL.  369 

a  beating  heart  to  see  him  enter  and  look  round  for 
the  first  time.  Tom  advanced  before  him,  carrying 
the  leg-rest,  and  stood  beside  Maggie  on  the  hearth. 
Of  those  two  young  hearts  Tom's  suffered  the  most 
unmixed  pain,  for  Maggie,  with  all  her  keen  suscep- 
tibility, yet  felt  as  if  the  sorrow  made  larger  room 
for  her  love  to  flow  in,  and  gave  breathing-space  to 
her  passionate  nature.  No  true  boy  feels  that :  he 
would  rather  go  and  slay  the  Nemean  lion,  or  per- 
form any  round  of  heroic  labours,  than  endure 
perpetual  appeals  to  his  pity,  for  evils  over  which 
he  can  make  no  conquest. 

Mr.  Tulliver  paused  just  inside  the  door,  resting 
on  Luke,  and  looking  round  him  at  all  the  bare 
places,  which  for  him  were  filled  with  the  shadows 
of  departed  objects,  —  the  daily  companions  of  his 
life.  His  faculties  seemed  to  be  renewing  their 
strength  from  getting  a  footing  on  this  demonstra- 
tion of  the  senses. 

"  Ah  ! "  he  said,  slowly,  moving  towards  his  chair, 
"  they  've  sold  me  up  ...  they  've  sold  me  up." 

Then  seating  himself,  and  laying  down  his  stick, 
while  Luke  left  the  room,  he  looked  round  again. 

"  They  've  left  the  big  Bible,"  he  said.  "  It 's  got 
everything  in,  —  when  I  was  born  and  married,  — 
bring  it  me,  Tom." 

The  quarto  Bible  was  laid  open  before  him  at  the 
fly-leaf;  and  while  he  was  reading  with  slowly 
travelling  eyes,  Mrs.  Tulliver  entered  the  room, 
but  stood  in  mute  surprise  to  find  her  husband 
down  already,  and  with  the  great  Bible  before 
him. 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  looking  at  a  spot  where  his  finger 
rested,  "  my  mother  was  Margaret  Beaton,  —  she 
died  when  she  was  forty-seven :  hers  was  n't  a  long- 

VOL.  i.  —  24 


370  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

lived  family,  —  we  're  our  mother's  children,  Gritty 
and  me  are,  —  we  shall  go  to  our  last  bed  before 
long." 

He  seemed  to  be  pausing  over  the  record  of  his 
sister's  birth  and  marriage,  as  if  it  were  suggesting 
new  thoughts  to  him  ;  then  he  suddenly  looked  up 
at  Tom,  and  said,  in  a  sharp  tone  of  alarm, — 

"They  have  n't  come  upo'  Moss  for  the  money 
as  I  lent  him,  have  they  ? " 

"  No,  father,"  said  Tom  ;  "  the  note  was  burnt." 

Mr.  Tulliver  turned  his  eyes  on  the  page  again, 
and  presently  said,  — 

"Ah  .  .  .  Elizabeth  Dodson  ...  it's  eighteen 
year  since  I  married  her  — " 

"  Come  next  Lady  Day,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  going 
up  to  his  side  and  looking  at  the  page. 

Her  husband  fixed  his  eyes  earnestly  on  her 
face. 

"  Poor  Bessie,"  he  said,  "  you  was  a  pretty  lass 
then,  —  everybody  said  so,  —  and  I  used  to  think 
you  kept  your  good  looks  rarely.  But  you're 
sorely  aged  .  .  .  don't  you  bear  me  ill-will  ...  I 
meant  to  do  well  by  you  ...  we  promised  one 
another  for  better  or  for  worse  — 

"  But  I  never  thought  it  'ud  be  so  for  worse  as 
this,"  said  poor  Mrs.  Tulliver,  with  the  strange 
scared  look  that  had  come  over  her  of  late  ;  "  and 
my  poor  father  gave  me  away  .  .  .  and  to  come 
on  so  all  at  once  — 

"  Oh,  mother,"  said  Maggie,  "  don't  talk  in  that 
way." 

"  No,  I  know  you  won't  let  your  poor  mother 
speak  .  .  .  that's  been  the  way  all  my  life  .  .  . 
your  father  never  minded  what  I  said  ...  it  'ud 
have  been  o'  no  use  for  me  to  beg  and  pray  .  .  . 


THE  DOWNFALL.  371 

and  it  'ud  be  no  use  now,  not  if  I  was  to  go  down 
o'  my  hands  and  knees  —  " 

"Don't  say  so,  Bessy,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  whose 
pride,  in  these  first  moments  of  humiliation,  was  in 
abeyance  to  the  sense  of  some  justice  in  his  wife's 
reproach.  "If  there's  anything  left  as  I  could  do 
to  make  you  amends,  I  would  n't  say  you  nay." 

"  Then  we  might  stay  here  and  get  a  living,  and 
I  might  keep  among  my  own  sisters  .  .  .  and  me 
been  such  a  good  wife  to  you,  and  never  crossed 
you  from  week's  end  to  week's  end  .  .  .  and  they 
all  say  so  ...  they  say  it  'ud  be  nothing  but  right 
.  .  .  only  you  Jre  so  turned  against  Wakem." 

"  Mother,"  said  Tom,  severely,  "  this  is  not  the 
time  to  talk  about  that." 

"  Let  her  be,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver.  "  Say  what  you 
mean,  Bessy." 

"  Why,  now  the  mill  and  the  land 's  all  Wakem's, 
and  he 's  got  everything  in  his  hands,  what 's  the  use 
o'  setting  your  face  against  him  ?  —  when  he  says 
you  may  stay  here,  and  speaks  as  fair  as  can  be, 
and  says  you  may  manage  the  business  and  have 
thirty  shilling  a  week,  and  a  horse  to  ride  about 
to  market?  And  where  have  we  got  to  put  our 
heads  ?  We  must  go  into  one  o'  the  cottages  in 
the  village  .  .  .  and  me  and  my  children  brought 
down  to  that  .  .  .  and  all  because  you  must  set 
your  mind  against  folks  till  there's  no  turning 
you." 

Mr.  Tulliver  had  sunk  back  in  his  chair,  trembling. 

"  You  may  do  as  you  like  wi '  me,  Bessy,"  he  said, 
in  a  low  voice ;  "  I  've  been  the  bringing  of  you  to 
poverty  .  .  .  this  world 's  too  many  for  me  .  .  . 
I  'm  naught  but  a  bankrupt  —  it 's  no  use  standing 
up  for  anything  now." 


372  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

"Father,"  said  Tom,  "I  don't  agree  with  my 
mother  or  my  uncles,  and  I  don't  think  you  ought 
to  submit  to  be  under  Wakem.  I  get  a  pound 
a  week  now,  and  you  can  find  something  else  to 
do  when  you  get  well." 

"  Say  no  more,  Tom,  say  no  more :  I  've  had 
enough  for  this  day.  Give  me  a  kiss,  Bessy,  and 
let  us  bear  one  another  no  ill-will :  we  shall  never 
be  young  again  .  .  .  tliis  world's  been  too  many 
for  me." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

AN   ITEM  ADDED  TO   THE   FAMILY  REGISTER 

THAT  first  moment  of  renunciation  and  submission 
was  followed  by  days  of  violent  struggle  in  the 
miller's  mind,  as  the  gradual  access  of  bodily 
strength  brought  with  it  increasing  ability  to  em- 
brace in  one  view  all  the  conflicting  conditions 
under  which  he  found  himself.  Feeble  limbs  easily 
resign  themselves  to  be  tethered,  and  when  we  are 
subdued  by  sickness  it  seems  possible  to  us  to  ful- 
fil pledges  which  the  old  vigour  comes  back  and 
breaks.  There  were  times  when  poor  Tulliver 
thought  the  fulfilment  of  his  promise  to  Bessy 
was  something  quite  too  hard  for  human  nature : 
he  had  promised  her  without  knowing  what  she 
was  going  to  say,  —  she  might  as  well  have  asked 
him  to  carry  a  ton  weight  on  his  back.  But  again, 
there  were  many  feelings  arguing  on  her  side, 
besides  the  sense  that  life  had  been  made  hard 
to  her  by  having  married  him.  He  saw  a  possi- 
bility, by  much  pinching,  of  saving  money  out  of 
his  salary  towards  paying  a  second  dividend  to  his 
creditors,  and  it  would  not  be  easy  elsewhere  to 
get  a  situation  such  as  he  could  fill.  He  had  led 
an  easy  life,  ordering  much  and  working  little,  and 
had  no  aptitude  for  any  new  business.  He  must 
perhaps  take  to  day-labour,  and  his  wife  must  have 
help  from  her  sisters,  —  a  prospect  doubly  bitter  to 


374  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

him,  now  they  had  let  all  Bessy's  precious  things 
be  sold,  probably  because  they  liked  to  set  her 
against  him,  by  making  her  feel  that  he  had  brought 
her  to  that  pass.  He  listened  to  their  admonitory 
talk,  when  they  came  to  urge  on  him  what  he  was 
bound  to  do  for  poor  Bessy's  sake  with  averted 
eyes,  that  every  now  and  then  flashed  on  them 
furtively  when  their  backs  were  turned.  Nothing 
but  the  dread  of  needing  their  help  could  have 
made  it  an  easier  alternative  to  take  their  advice. 
But  the  strongest  influence  of  all  was  the  love  of 
the  old  premises  where  he  had  run  about  when  he 
was  a  boy,  just  as  Tom  had  done  after  him.  The 
Tullivers  had  lived  on  this  spot  for  generations, 
and  he  had  sat  listening  on  a  low  stool  on  winter 
evenings  while  his  father  talked  of  the  old  half- 
timbered  mill  that  had  been  there  before  the  last 
great  floods  which  damaged  it  so  that  his  grandfather 
pulled  it  down  and  built  the  new  one.  It  was 
when  he  got  able  to  walk  about  and  look  at  all  the 
old  objects,  that  he  felt  the  strain  of  this  clinging 
affection  for  the  old  home  as  part  of  his  life,  part 
of  himself.  He  could  n't  bear  to  think  of  himself 
living  on  any  other  spot  than  this,  where  he  knew 
the  sound  of  every  gate  and  door,  and  felt  that  the 
shape  and  colour  of  every  roof  and  weather-stain  and 
broken  hillock  was  good,  because  his  growing  senses 
had  been  fed  on  them.  Our  instructed  vagrancy, 
which  has  hardly  time  to  linger  by  the  hedgerows, 
but  runs  away  early  to  the  tropics,  and  is  at  home 
with  palms  and  banyans,  —  which  is  nourished  on 
books  of  travel,  and  stretches  the  theatre  of  its 
imagination  to  the  Zambesi,  —  can  hardly  get  a 
dim  notion  of  what  an  old-fashioned  man  like 
Tulliver  felt  for  this  spot,  where  all  his  memories 


THE  DOWNFALL.  375 

centred,  and  where  life  seemed  like  a  familiar 
smooth-handled  tool  that  the  fingers  clutch  with 
loving  ease.  And  just  now  he  was  living  in 
that  freshened  memory  of  the  far-off  time  which 
conies  to  us  in  the  passive  hours  of  recovery  from 
sickness. 

"  Ay,  Luke,"  he  said,  one  afternoon,  as  he  stood 
looking  over  the  orchard  gate,  "  I  remember  the 
day  they  planted  those  apple-trees.  My  father  was 
a ,  huge  man  for  planting,  —  it  was  like  a  merry- 
making to  him  to  get  a  cart  full  o'  young  trees,  — 
and  I  used  to  stand  i'  the  cold  with  him,  and  follow 
him  about  like  a  dog." 

Then  he  turned  round,  and,  leaning  against  the 
gate-post,  looked  at  the  opposite  buildings. 

"  The  old  mill  'ud  miss  me,  I  think,  Luke.  There 's 
a  story  as  when  the  mill  changes  hands,  the  river 's 
angry,  —  I  Ve  heard  my  father  say  it  many  a  time. 
There  's  no  telling  whether  there  may  n't  be  summat 
in  the  story,  for  this  is  a  puzzling  world,  and  Old 
Harry 's  got  a  finger  in  it,  —  it 's  been  too  many  for 
me,  I  know." 

"Ay,  sir,"  said  Luke,  with  soothing  sympathy, 
"  what  wi'  the  rust  on  the  wheat,  an'  the  firin'  o'  the 
ricks  an'  that,  as  I  Ve  seen  i'  my  time,  —  things 
often  looks  comical:  there's  the  bacon  fat  wi'  our 
last  pig  runs  away  like  butter,  —  it  leaves  naught 
but  a  scratchin'." 

"It's  just  as  if  it  was  yesterday,  now,"  Mr. 
Tulliver  went  on,  "  when  my  father  began  the  malt- 
ing. I  remember,  the  day  they  finished  the  malt- 
house,  I  thought  summat  great  was  to  come  of  it ; 
for  we  'd  a  plum^  pudding  that  day  and  a  bit  of  a 
feast,  and  I  said  to  my  mother,  —  she  was  a  fine 
dark-eyed  woman,  my  mother  was,  —  the  little 


376  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

wench  'ull  be  as  like  her  as  two  peas."  Here  Mr. 
Tulliver  put  his  stick  between  his  legs,  and  took 
out  his  snuff-box,  for  the  greater  enjoyment  of  this 
anecdote,  which  dropped  from  him  in  fragments,  as 
if  he  every  other  moment  lost  narration  in  vision.  "  I 
was  a  little  chap  no  higher  much  than  my  mother's 
knee,  —  she  was  sore  fond  of  us  children,  Gritty 
and  me,  —  and  so  I  said  to  her,  '  Mother,'  I  said, 
'  shall  we  have  plum  pudding  every  day  because  o' 
the  malt-house  ? '  She  used  to  tell  me  o'  that  till 
her  dying  day.  She  was  but  a  young  woman  when 
she  died,  my  mother  was.  But  it 's  forty  good  year 
since  they  finished  the  malt-house,  and  it  is  n't 
many  days  out  of  'em  all,  as  I  have  n't  looked  out 
into  the  yard  there,  the  first  thing  in  the  morning, 
—  all  weathers,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end.  I 
should  go  off  my  head  in  a  new  place.  I  should 
be  like  as  if  I  'd  lost  my  way.  It 's  all  hard, 
whichever  way  I  look  at  it,  —  the  harness  'ull  gall 
me,  —  but  it  'ud  be  surnmat  to  draw  along  the  old 
road,  instead  of  a  new  un." 

"  Ay,  sir,"  said  Luke,  "  you  'd  be  a  deal  better 
here  nor  in  some  new  place.  I  can't  abide  new 
places  mysen  :  things  is  allays  awk'ard,  —  narrow- 
wheeled  waggins,  belike,  and  the  stiles  all  another 
sort,  an'  oat-cake  i'  some  places,  tow'rt  th'  head  o' 
the  Floss,  there.  It's  poor  work,  changing  your 
country-side." 

"  But  I  doubt,  Luke,  they  '11  be  for  getting  rid  o' 
Ben,  and  making  you  do  with  a  lad,  —  and  I  must 
help  a  bit  wi'  the  mill.  You  '11  have  a  worse 
place." 

"Ne'er  mind,  sir,"  said  Luke,  "I  sha'n't  plague 
mysen.  I  'n  been  wi'  you  twenty  year,  an'  you 
can't  get  twenty  year  wi'  whistlin'  for  'ern,  no  more 


THE  DOWNFALL.  377 

nor  you  can  make  the  trees  grow :  you  mun  wait 
till  God  A' mighty  sends  'em.  I  can't  abide  new 
victual  nor  new  faces,  /  can't,  —  you  niver  know 
but  what  they  '11  gripe  you." 

The  walk  was  finished  in  silence  after  this,  for 
Luke  had  disburdened  himself  of  thoughts  to  an 
extent  that  left  his  conversational  resources  quite 
barren,  and  Mr.  Tulliver  had  relapsed  from  his 
recollections  into  a  painful  meditation  on  the  choice 
of  hardships  before  him.  Maggie  noticed  that  he 
was  unusually  absent  that  evening  at  tea;  and 
afterwards  he  sat  leaning  forward  in  his  chair, 
looking  at  the  ground,  moving  his  lips,  and  shak- 
ing his  head  from  time  to  time.  Then  he  looked 
hard  at  Mrs.  Tulliver,  who  was  knitting  opposite 
him ;  then  at  Maggie,  who,  as  she  bent  over  her 
sewing,  was  intensely  conscious  of  some  drama 
going  forward  in  her  father's  mind.  Suddenly 
he  took  up  the  poker  and  broke  the  large  coal 
fiercely. 

"Dear  heart,  Mr.  Tulliver,  what  can  you  be 
thinking  of  ? "  said  his  wife,  looking  up  in  alarm ; 
"  it 's  very  wasteful,  breaking  the  coal,  and  we  've 
got  hardly  any  large  coal  left,  and  I  don't  know 
where  the  rest  is  to  come  from." 

"  I  don't  think  you  're  quite  so  well  to-night, 
are  you,  father  ? "  said  Maggie  ;  "  you  seem  un- 
easy." 

"  Why,  how  is  it  Tom  does  n't  come  ? "  said  Mr. 
Tulliver,  impatiently. 

"  Dear  heart !  is  it  time  ?  I  must  go  and  get  his 
supper,"  said  Mrs.  Tulliver,  laying  down  her  knit- 
ting, and  leaving  the  room. 

"  It 's  nigh  upon  half-past  eight,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver.  "  He  '11  be  here  soon.  Go,  go  and  get 


378  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

the  big  Bible,  and  open  it  at  the  beginning,  where 
everything's  set  down.  And  get  the  pen  and 
ink." 

Maggie  obeyed,  wondering;  but  her  father  gave 
no  further  orders,  and  only  sat  listening  for  Tom's 
footfall  on  the  gravel,  apparently  irritated  by  the 
wind,  which  had  risen,  and  was  roaring  so  as  to 
drown  all  other  sounds.  There  was  a  strange  light 
in  his  eyes  that  rather  frightened  Maggie ;  she  began 
to  wish  that  Tom  would  come  too. 

"There  he  is,  then,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver,  in  an 
excited  way,  when  the  knock  came  at  last.  Maggie 
went  to  open  the  door ;  but  her  mother  came  out  of 
the  kitchen  hurriedly,  saying,  "  Stop  a  bit,  Maggie  ; 
I '11  open  it." 

Mrs.  Tulliver  had  begun  to  be  a  little  frightened 
at  her  boy,  but  she  was  jealous  of  every  office  others 
did  for  him. 

"  Your  supper 's  ready  by  the  kitchen-fire,  my 
boy,"  she  said,  as  he  took  off  his  hat  and  coat. 
"You  shall  have  it  by  yourself,  just  as  you  like, 
and  I  won't  speak  to  you." 

"I  think  my  father  wants  Tom,  mother,"  said 
Maggie  ;  "  he  must  come  into  the  parlour  first." 

Tom  entered  with  his  usual  saddened  evening 
face ;  but  his  eyes  fell  immediately  on  the  open 
Bible  and  the  inkstand,  and  he  glanced  with  a 
look  of  anxious  surprise  at  his  father,  who  was 
saying,  — 

"  Come,  come,  you  're  late,  —  I  want  you." 

"Is  there  anything  the  matter,  father?"  said 
Tom. 

"  You  sit  down,  —  all  of  you,"  said  Mr.  Tulliver, 
peremptorily.  "  And,  Tom,  sit  down  here ;  I  Ve  got 
something  for  you  to  write  i'  the  Bible." 


THE  DOWNFALL.  379 

They  all  three  sat  down,  looking  at  him.  He 
began  to  speak  slowly,  looking  first  at  his  wife. 

"  I  Ve  made  up  my  mind,  Bessy,  and  1 11  be  as 
good  as  my  word  to  you.  There  11  be  the  same 
grave  made  for  us  to  lie  down  in,  and  we  must  n't 
be  bearing  one  another  ill-will.  1 11  stop  in  the 
old  place,  and  1 11  serve  under  Wakem,  —  and  1 11 
serve  him  like  an  honest  man  :  there  's  no  Tulliver 
but  what 's  honest,  mind  that,  Tom  ! "  —  here  his 
voice  rose  :  "  they  11  have  it  to  throw  up  against 
me  as  I  paid  a  dividend,  —  but  it  was  n't  my  fault, 
—  it  was  because  there 's  raskills  in  the  world. 
They  Ve  been  too  many  for  me,  and  I  must  give  in. 
1 11  put  my  neck  in  harness,  —  for  you  Ve  a  right 
to  say  as  I've  brought  you  into  trouble,  Bessy  — 
and  1 11  serve  him  as  honest  as  if  he  was  no  raskill ; 
I  'm  an  honest  man,  though  I  shall  never  hold  my 
head  up  no  more,  —  I  'm  a  tree  as  is  broke,  —  a  tree 
as  is  broke." 

He  paused,  and  looked  on  the  ground.  Then 
suddenly  raising  his  head,  he  said,  in  a  louder  yet 
deeper  tone,  — 

"  But  I  won't  forgive  him !  I  know  what  they 
say,  —  he  never  meant  me  any  harm,  —  that 's  the 
way  Old  Harry  props  up  the  raskills,  —  he 's  been 
at  the  bottom  of  everything  —  but  he  's  a  fine  gentle- 
man —  I  know,  I  know.  I  should  n't  ha'  gone 
to  law,  they  say.  But  who  made  it  so  as  there 
was  no  arbitrating  and  no  justice  to  be  got  ?  It 
signifies  nothing  to  him,  —  I  know  that ;  he 's  one 
o'  them  fine  gentlemen  as  get  money  by  doing 
business  for  poorer  folks,  and  when  he 's  made 
beggars  of  'em  he  11  give  'em  charity.  I  won't 
forgive  him!  I  wish  he  might  be  punished  with 
shame  till  his  own  son  'ud  like  to  forget  him. 


380  THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS. 

I  wish  he  may  do  summat  as  they  'd  make  him 
work  at  the  treadmill !  But  he  won't,  —  he  's  too 
big  a  raskill  to  let  the  law  lay  hold  on  him. 
And  you  mind  this,  Tom,  —  you  never  forgive 
him  neither,  if  you  mean  to  be  my  son.  There  '11 
maybe  come  a  time  when  you  may  make  him  feel, 
—  it  '11  never  come  to  me,  —  I  'n  got  my  head 
under  the  yoke.  Now  write,  —  write  it  i'  the 
Bible." 

"  Oh,  father,  what  ? "  said  Maggie,  sinking  down 
by  his  knee,  pale  and  trembling.  "  It 's  wicked  to 
curse  and  bear  malice." 

"It  isn't  wicked,  I  tell  you,"  said  her  father, 
fiercely.  "  It 's  wicked  as  the  raskills  should  pros- 
per, —  it 's  the  devil's  doing.  Do  as  I  tell  you,  Tom. 
Write." 

"  What  am  I  to  write  ? "  said  Tom,  with  gloomy 
submission. 

"Write  as  your  father,  Edward  Tulliver,  took 
service  under  John  Wakem,  the  man  as  had  helped 
to  ruin  him,  because  I  'd  promised  my  wife  to  make 
her  what  amends  I  could  for  her  trouble,  and 
because  I  wanted  to  die  in  th'  old  place  where  I 
was  born  and  my  father  was  born.  Put  that  i'  the 
right  words  —  you  know  how  —  and  then  write,  as 
I  don't  forgive  Wakem  for  all  that ;  and  for  all  I  '11 
serve  him  honest,  I  wish  evil  may  befall  him. 
Write  that." 

There  was  a  dead  silence  as  Tom's  pen  moved 
along  the  paper ;  Mrs.  Tulliver  looked  scared,  and 
Maggie  trembled  like  a  leaf. 

"  Now  let  me  hear  what  you  've  wrote,"  said  Mr. 
Tulliver.  Tom  read  aloud,  slowly. 

"  Now  write  —  write  as  you  '11  remember  what 
Wakem  's  done  to  your  father,  and  you  '11  make  him 


THE  DOWNFALL.  381 

and  his  feel  it,  if  ever  the  day  comes.  And  sign 
your  name  Thomas  Tulliver." 

"  Oh  no,  father,  dear  father  ! "  said  Maggie,  almost 
choked  with  fear.  "  You  should  n't  make  Tom  write 
that." 

"  Be  quiet,  Maggie ! "  said  Tom.  "  I  shall  write 
it" 


END  OF  VOL.  L 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

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